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THE HAND OF FATE 


FOUR BOOKS BY CHEIRO 

Language of the Hand 

A Complete Practical Work on the Sciences of Cheirognomy and Cheiromancy* 
Containing the System, Rules and Experience of 

CHEIRO 

COUNT DE HAMONG 

Fifty-five Full-page Illustrations and over Two Hundred Engravings 
OF Lines, Mounts and Marks. 

Drawings of the Seven Types by THEO. DORE 

Pull-page reproductions of famous hands, also Normal and Abnormal hands 

taken from life. 

Eighth Edition, enlarged, $2.50. 

Cheiro^s Poems 

A Beautiful Volume showing the Versatility of the Author and his Wonderful 
Acquaintance with Human Nature. Abounds in Passion, Emotion, 
Regretfulness, and all Expressed in Language that 
carries one along interestingly. 

Cloth, gilt top, 50 cents. 

ANOTHER BOOK ON THE HAND BY CHEIRO 

Cheifo^s Guide to the Hand 

The best Work on Palmistry at a low price. Fully illustrated and written with 
Cheiro’s usual clear style. 

Cloth, $1.00 ; paper, 50 cents. 

The Hand of Fate 

A Novel 

By CHEIRO 

A Strange Psychological Story Chiefly Dealing with Hereditary Laws and 

Parental Influences. 

Cloth, $ 1.00 ; paper, 5oc. 

For sale everywhere^ or sent postpaid on receipt of price ^ by the publisher ^ 

F. TENNYSON NEELY 

96 QUEEN STREET 114 FIFTH AVENUE 

LONDON NEW YORK 







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From a photograph by Aim6 Dupont, New York. 


CHEIRO, 



THE HAND OF FATE 

OR 

A STUDY OF DESTINY 


A NOVEL 




BY jLJ-Ou'yvv.-e'VW . ^ 

»» 

COUNT DE H AMONG 

Author of “ The Language of the Handf “ If We Only Knew, and 
Other Poems f “ The Guide to the Handf Etc. 



PUBLISHERS 


New York 

F. TENNYSON NEELY 


London 

SAXON & CO. 








i74 


Copyright, 1898, 

by 

F. Tennyson Neely, 
in 

United States 
and 

Great Britain. 

All nights Reserved. 




2nd COPY, 
1898. 


CONTENTS. 


Foreword 


PAGS 

9 


Chapter I. 


21 


n. 37 

in. 58 


IV. 72 

V. 85 


» 


VI. 


- 92 

- 146 


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FOREWORD 


I N the autumn of 1896 many leading 
papers cited as an extraordinary in- 
stance of prenatal influence the case of a 
young Italian girl who was admitted to 
Bellevue Hospital, New York, with a pecu- 
liar animated growth at the left side of her 
neck, which had commenced to develop 
some years after her birth, and which 
could only be accounted for by a fright 
received by the mother some months 
prior to her birth. I have the details of 
this case with me while I write this 
introduction, but I refrain from giving 
them here on account of the similarity 
they bear to some portions of the following 


z 


Foreword 


story, which was, however, written a con- 
siderable time before the above-mentioned 
case was brought before the notice of the 
public. 

As an example of the effect produced by 
the mind on the body due to prenatal 
impressions, I might mention a case some 
years ago in England of a well known lady, 
who seeing a beggar and her six children 
on her grounds, ordered her off with the 
remark, “ Take your litter of pigs out of 
my sight.” Whereupon the woman, who 
was really destitute and almost starving, in 
her anger knelt on the road and cried, “ If 
there is a God in Heaven, then may the 
child you will bear be what you deem 
mine to be.” 

The woman’s words and attitude, it is 
believed, produced a deep impression upon 
the lady, who about six months later gave 
birth to a little girl who, instead of a nose 
and mouth, had a pig's snout^ .and who as 


Foreword 


xi 


long as she lived was fed out of a silver 
trough. 

As another instance of the mind of the 
mother affecting the mind of the unborn 
child, I will mention en passant, the case of 
a boy in Boston, U.S.A., whose parent 
could neither read nor winte, yet who had 
such a natural gift of calculation that at 
five years of age he was exhibited as an 
infant prodigy at Harvard University, 
where he gave correct answers to addi- 
tions of five to seven columns of figures, 
three and four figures deep, after an 
instant’s pause for reflection. As an 
explanation of this extraordinary faculty, 
it was shown that some months previous 
to his birth, his mother who was an expert 
at knitting, got a commission to make so 
many hundred pairs of socks at a certain 
price, and that she had occupied her atten- 
tion almost night and day with trying to 
make the necessary calculation as to how 


xii 


Foreword 


much yarn she would require for the task, 
and what would be her profit. 

The story that appears in the following 
chapters was written long before the case 
of the Italian girl was brought before my 
notice, but it probably would never have 
appeared if her case had not excited 
attention, for without that parallel this 
story would most probably be considered 
merely a figment of morbid imagination. 

There are some persons who will 
probably think the story too horrible to 
have ever been published. My answer to 
that is, that the crimes that are every day 
committed through ignorance — or worse 
still, through thoughtlessness — of such 
matters as hereditary and prenatal influ- 
ences, are far more horrible than any story 
the imagination could invent. I have 
seen such terrible examples of heredity 
and wilful prenatal carelessness, that were 
it possible, I would write a story revealing 


Foreword 


xni 


their criminality so that every syllable and 
word would be branded upon the memory 
of each reader, like living lines of warning 
that never could be forgotten. 

It is at the doors of the religious bigot 
and hypersensitive purist that the charge 
will one day be laid of half the mental and 
physical deformities that fill the world 
with so much pain and misery, degradation 
and shame. 

These are the people who close the lips 
of doctors while they erect a hospital for the 
very diseases produced by the ignorance 
they encourage, and seek to screen in 
silence. They beguile themselves into 
believing that they worship God — for- 
getting that the God of Knowledge knows 
no shame, and that the God of Nature is 
the same nature whether found in animals 
or men. These are the people who curb 
Christianity with creeds ; who cannot admit 
good unless it issues from the portals of a 


Foreword 


xiv 

church, and that too of a certain denomina- 
tion, with a certain dogma, ceremony and 
observance. 

To them the words of Christ, “ Those 
who are not against us are for us,” can 
have no meaning, the freethinker is an 
outlaw in their eyes, even though he too 
builds a hospital, is an upright man, is 
a good master, and a helper, and a 
benefactor to his race. 

Those who dare to raise their voice or 
their pen on this subject but in the orthodox 
way, these good folk have the power to 
taboo “ not respectable,” and no leper in 
the days of Israel could become more 
shunned than the so-called social leper 
who should have the misfortune to be thus 
tabooed. Occasionally, it is true, these 
conventional persons clean out a saloon, or 
drive the unfortunate of one street into 
another more obscure, but they will not 
strike at the root of the evil — an evil that 


Foreword 


XV 


may exist in their own homes — in their 
loveless marriages sanctioned by state and 
church ! Too often in their very religion 
they have forgotten the simple human 
Christ, and placed in His stead a Deity 
that must be approached with fear and 
trembling. 

These people would be shocked if we 
told them they were superstitious — for will 
they not cause the arrest of a woman for 
telling cards, and he who reads the stars 
they fain would torture at the stake. But 
in their belief, the sun and moon stood 
still that some poor wretches might be 
slain ; the movement of a star meant the 
discovery of Christ; their infants must be 
baptized with the thumb making the sign 
of the cross on the forehead and not with 
the first finger; and God must be 
approached with ceremonials based and 
built on superstition, but so they hold 
their own through the superstitious 


xvi 


Foreword 


element they fain would think so wicked, 
but which is the greater part of all men’s 
lives and beliefs. 

This anti-human idea of religion, how- 
ever, removes the burden of the responsi- 
bility of individual action, that is pleasing 
to the majority of the masses, who if they 
do wrong can blame the devil, and if their 
children suffer through their fault, they 
can shirk their responsibility by placing it 
on the shoulders of God. 

This is the creed that has done to 
humanity the greater harm of all, it but 
suits a mankind that is too selfish to 
change, a selfish mass that cheats its 
neighbour all the week and prays on 
Sunday for forgiveness, that first breaks 
its youth on the wheels of dissipation — 
and then craves to have children to 
perpetuate its name, or to inherit the 
money it cannot carry with it to the grave. 

Is it any wonder, then, that while such 


Foreword 


XVll 


things exist, the world is filled on every 
side with pain, misery, dishonour, and 
degradation ? For the seeds that we sow 
must be reaped^ if not by us, well then, by 
those who will some day take our place. 
The destiny of mankind is the destiny of 
creation, whereby the smallest link of 
humanity is as important as the greatest 
in the part it plays in life’s great chain ; 
there is no escape from the destiny that 
has been made for us by the actions of the 
past. 

For who can deny that the present is bu; 
the child of the past ; and as the present 
must in its turn become the father of the 
future, I would endeavour to show that the 
great lesson of life should be the bettering 
and helping of the race who shall come 
after us. By the study of such natural 
laws as heredity and prenatal influences 


• “ The boMd of past existences is strong.” — SiR EDWIN ARNOLD# 


xviii Foreword 

and conscientious obedience to the same, I 
argue in the following story that, stern and 
relentless as Fate may be, yet it is not 
altogether irrevocable, but can only be 
changed by knowledge of those tendencies 
to evil and degeneration so far previous to 
the action that other laws may have time 
to operate and effect the would-be result. 

Those who would fain argue against this 
idea of life, would do well to remember 
that in the last few years it has become 
the accepted theory of many brain special- 
ists that there must be an advance growth 
in the brain before an idea or thought 
becomes the result. It is therefore 
possible that at twenty years of age, for 
example, there may germinate in one’s 
brain some tendency that may ruin or 
exalt the life at forty, and that one may 
be all those years unconscious that such a 
change is taking place until the desire for 
the action makes one aware of the 


Foreword 


XXI 


tendency. It is thus we lay down rails as 
it were for the engine of action to run — 
but we lay these rails or tendencies in 
advance, and these I am convinced reach 
far beyond our lives, and commence the 
road of destiny for our posterity, who like 
ourselves will be too ignorant, or too 
careless, to think about those who must 
also follow. 

In conclusion, if there are some who 
desire a more religious foundation for such 
ideaSj what can be stronger, I ask, than 
those words that have become so familiar 
that we scarce think of their meaning, “ I 
will visit the sins of the fathers upon the 
children, even unto the third and fourth 
generations ” ? 

If the following story therefore, in spite 
of all its imperfections, can make even a 
few persons think a little more seriously 
over these laws that govern and control 
life, which may not be violated without 


XX 


Foreword 



consequent penalties, such then will prove 
a sufficient excuse for my having given it 
to the world, and will speak more loudly in 
defence of my action than aught else that 
I can offer. 


Leigh de Hamong. 


A Study of Destiny 

CHAPTER I 

I T was during the summer of 1889, that^ 
accompanied by a rather antiquated 
archaeologist, I found myself one morning 
trying to make a bargain with some Arabs 
for the use of a hut during our sojourn in 
El Karnak. 

My companion was one of those extra- 
ordinary persons that one somehow expects 
to find travelling in a country like Egypt. 
He was a fragment of creation which 
refused to be ground by the wheel of 
life into the common mould of ordinary 
mortals. 

By nationality he was a German, with 
an ancestry back to Noah, and with so 


±2 


A Study of Destiny. 

many years upon his head, that his heart 
no longer measured time with regularity, 
and kept in lieu of palpitation a kind of 
dog-trot march which the Angel of Death 
seemed to quietly ignore. By profession 
he was Professor of Archaeology. He 
knew every stone in the Great Pyramids, 
and he seemed without doubt to be person- 
ally acquainted with every mummy ever 
embalmed from the days of Cheope down 
to our present era of cremation. He was 
an attache to the Mummy Department of 
great Museums — a man who worked for 
work’s sake, and not sordidly for gold ; 
and was so unusual in such matters, that 
people thought him quite mad, except of 
course when such insanity brought them 
more money than they could ever gain 
by the sanity of their own intellectual 
stupidity. His own country, “ Das Vater- 
land,” had not seen fit to recognize its 
child. It had many fossils, human and 


A Study of Destiny. 23 

otherwise, but it is probable that it placed 
such value on its French Antiquities, that 
it failed to see the virtue of a study of 
dead Egyptians. Hence he had sought 
England — England was partial to mum- 
mies — she built cofFers and cases for them, 
fine museums for them, she paid wise 
looking professors to label them chrono- 
logically, and then squabble for ages over 
the authenticity of their names — and 
England welcomed him, and became his 
scientific refuge. 

At various times he was brought before 
the notice of the Government by his 
services to the British Museum, and on 
one occasion his knowledge of Egyptian 
jewels and relics enabled him to trace by 
the sale of a rare collection of such 
treasures on the Continent, a tomb pre- 
viously unknown to Egyptologists, which 
was being slowly and steadily robbed by 
a band of Arabs. For this service to 


24 A study of Destiny. 

science any other man would probably 
have received a large reward, but in his 
case he was satisfied to be sent to Egypt 
in the worst part of the year to make 
arrangements for the future safe custody 
of the pillaged tomb. That work having 
been successfully accomplished, he turned 
his attention to the monuments of Thebes, 
and at the time my story opens, he had 
determined, single-handed and almost with- 
out capital, to search for evidence of an- 
other undiscovered tomb of unsurpassed 
magnificence which, he argued from certain 
data he had collected, existed in, or about 
Thebes. 

As for myself, I had met the old man 
some years before in London, whilst dining 
one night in an old caf6 close to the 
Museum. He was drawn to me by a ring 
that I wore. The ring had been found on 
the hand of a skeleton near Nineveh — a 
Persian relic consisting of three small 


A Study of Destiny. 


25 


chiselled scarabs, representing the Devil, 
the World, and Eternity. He took a wax 
impression of the ring, and found out that 
the scarabs dated back to the Sassasian 
period of Persia. Through this little in- 
cident we became fast friends. It was little 
wonder then, when we found ourselves 
fellow travellers in Egypt, that he laid his 
plans before me, and I agreed to spend the 
rest of my time with him in his researches 
among dried up mummies, broken idols, 
and buried tombs. 

We had decided to make our head- 
quarters at El Karnak, and so it was that 
on the morning my story opens we found 
ourselves making a bargain for a domicile 
with a respectable Arab citizen almost in 
the same spirit as one would with a 
London landlady. 

It will be sufficient for the purpose of 
this tale, to dwell only upon the points of 
interest bearing directly upon it, therefore 


26 A study of Destiny. 

I refrain from detailing all minor experi- 
ences or elaborate descriptions of either 
El Karnak or Thebes. 

On the morning after our arrival, fully 
equipped with a guide and all necessaries, 
we crossed the Nile and made our way 
towards that wonderful Valley of Death, 
the “ Tombs of the Kings.” It was 
scarcely dawn. There was only a long, 
luminous streak far away in the Eastern 
horizon sending out wide-spreading shafts 
of light like arrows to pierce the heart of 
departing night, driven hence like some 
fugitive before the fierce harbingers of the 
King of Day. Before us vaguely loomed 
a range of low hills, wrapped in that 
strange, chilling stillness that seems keen- 
est about the hour preceding daybreak. 
In the jealous granite heart of the Necro- 
polis were concealed the embalmed kings — 
kings perhaps before whom nations had 
trembled, and yet now their names are 


A Study of Destiny. 


27 


scarce spoken. The accumulated drift of 
centuries covers their greatness. Their 
glory has passed like the vanished rays 
of yesterday’s sun. They are worse off 
than the unrenowned dead, who are soon 
forgotten — Kings that they were, they are 
doomed to be the prey of undying curi- 
osity. They are rooted out of their resting 
places — they are bought and sold as 
merchandise — they are put in glass cases 
to be stared at, to be mocking fun for the 
ignorant, to have their limbs exposed, 
their deeds written and their follies re- 
corded. And yet, in spite of the lesson, 
modern man would fain be great — either a 
devil or a god in his ambitious forgetful- 
ness of the future. 

It is impossible to adequately describe 
the sombre grandeur, the impressiveness 
of the scene environing these tombs. One 
can scarcely keep the heart from dread, 
and the soul from awe, at the keen sense 


28 A study of Destiny, 

of a desolation that enspells. On every 
side are crumbling ruins of catacombs and 
pompous monuments, solemn witnesses of 
past glory — sculptured sneers to the living 
— monitors no man heeds. 

Here in this valley reigns a silence that 
contains within its stillness the elements of 
inarticulate eloquence, albeit the stones 
are tongueless, and the souls of the dead 
are voiceless spectres. 

Away above the hills, one looks up to 
the limitless blue space of heaven, then 
back again to the darkness of the tombs, 
where sleep the Pharaohs — and the living 
heart quakes with fear, not of self, for self 
is as nothing here, but with a sense of that 
defiant mystery called life, and of that 
mystery of mysteries called death, that 
mortal seems so powerless to make, break, 
or control, and never yet solved. 

Involuntarily we paused for a moment at 
the entrance. It seemed that here on the 


29 


A study of Destiny. 

very threshold everything animate and 
inanimate resented man’s intruding foot- 
steps. 

A large bat flew out of one of the neigh- 
bouring tombs and blinded by the light, 
dashed against our faces, gave vent to a 
sordine scream, and wildly disappeared in 
the direction of the night. 

We thought we were alone — the first in 
the early morning to venture amongst 
relics of kingly splendours in the sanctuary 
of the dead. And yet it was not so. 
Scarcely a hundred paces apart we 
discerned the figure of a man — a young 
man, whose senses seemed deaf to sound, 
as it were, entranced by the wonderful 
stillness that pervaded the mysterious 
place. There was something unusual in 
his personality that at once claimed our 
attention. It was not the fact of his being 
there alone at this early hour, although 
that in itself was unusual, for El Karnak at 


30 A Study of Destiny. 

this season of the year was deserted by 
tourists. There was a subtle something 
enveloping him. For are there not some 
persons whose atmosphere, whose every 
line and curve is the expression of their 
superior soul ; whereas, are there not 
others as devoid of expression, as devoid of 
this quality, as they are soulless ? 

The stranger had taken off his cap, 
apparently in token of reverence in this 
ancient abode of the illustrious dead. As 
he stood there uncovered, one could not 
help noticing that his strongly marked and 
almost handsome face bore an expression 
of sadness and desolation that was 
strangely in keeping with the scene. 
Although an Englishman and in an 
ordinary tourist costume, there was some- 
thing about him that harmonized with the 
weirdness of the valley and made him 
seem a part of the picture — a living 
example it might have been, of that 


31 


A Study of Destiny. 

strange invisible power called cohesion, 
that one sees in the Destiny of Nations, 
and does not care to admit in the 
individual Destiny of Man. 

We approached him, intending to make 
friendly overtures, but to our surprise 
with a peculiar expression of distrust, 
without returning our salutation he walked 
rapidly away towards a more distant tomb, 
and as if perfectly familiar with the place, 
he entered it and was lost to our view. 

From our guide we learned that he had 
been in the vicinity some time ; that he 
lived apart from everyone, and scarcely 
spoke to a human being unless circum- 
stances forced him to do so. It was 
rumoured that he spent almost his entire 
time day and night, prowling about the 
ruins. His favourite haunt the Tombs of 
the Kings, where he was generally to be 
found. “ But he is brave, brave as the 
lion,” the guide went on to say, and then 


32 A Study of Destiny. 

he told us how, but a month since, this man 
had plunged into the Nile, and saved a 
little native girl from being crushed by the 
paddle wheel of a steamer — “ but ” — and 
the guide lowered his voice in a mysterious 
way — “ there is one thing the Englishman 
is afraid of,” and with a writhing gesture of 
the hand, and emitting a sharp hiss, we 
knew that the stranger had some extra- 
ordinary fear of a snake. 

We had reached the entrance of one of 
the large tombs, and the old professor 
forgot everything else in the enthusiasm of 
his work. By chance probably we had 
struck a tomb that was exactly in accord- 
ance with a chart he had carefully worked 
out, and his old face lighted up with joy, 
and became young again with the promised 
realization of one of his pet dreams. 

During moments of great excitement, it 
was his habit to produce a little German 
pipe, and softly croon to himself as he 


A Study of Destiny. 3:^ 

rubbed and polished it with the sleeve of 
his old-fashioned black coat. On this 
occasion the bowl of the little veteran was 
polished till it shone like ebony, and I am 
certain that the sleeve of any other man’s 
coat would have caught fire through the 
vigorous friction. With pride the pro- 
fessor confided to me that he had worn 
that same coat at his work for over twenty 
years. How it stood the wear is beyond 
my comprehension. In colour it was a 
rusty black, very shiny but very clean, for 
the professor had the peculiar knack of 
looking spick and span under all conditions. 
Even after a long tramp across the 
desert, I have seen him turn up at the 
finish without a ^hair out of place, and a 
freshness about his beardless face that 
would delude one into the belief that he 
had just made his toilet. He never ceased 
to taunt me over “ the misfortune of 
having a heavy growth of beard,” and 


34 


A Study of Destiny. 


exulted that Providence had spared him. 
I think he would have begrudged the five 
minutes required to shave, and waxed 
profane over the interruption to his work. 

Although he had attained his seventieth 
year, he was agile and alert as a boy. 
True, he wore spectacles, but then one 
naturally does not expect a professor 
without them, particularly not an erudite 
Egyptologist. His gold- rimmed spectacles 
— his one extravagance — lent to his face a 
guise of profound learning that even seemed 
to impress our Arab guide, for the rascal 
did not attempt to impose upon us the 
usual yarns and lies which are as a rule 
launched upon tourists. He simply pointed 
out the places and objects. of interest with 
a long, lean finger, and waited for the 
professor to explain. 

We went from crypt to crypt, until at 
last the day came to an end, and we 
returned to our hut. 


35 


A Study of Destiny. 

The professor was extremely pleased 
with his first day’s work, but very 
suspicious of the Arab who had accom- 
panied us. After our meagre supper as 
we sat chatting together, he pointed out to 
me many doubtful things in the Arab’s 
behaviour. One instance in particular, 
when we had followed a passage, until it 
led us into a small chamber where the 
Arab had become positively insolent, 
because the professor insisted on tarrying 
to closely examine its formation. Cunning 
as the Arab was, he had not calculated on 
the tenacity of the man he had to deal 
with. Professor Von Heller had come to 
Thebes to fathom something, and neither a 
stone wall nor a horde of inimical Arabs 
would have in the slightest degree turned 
him aside, once he had arrived at the con- 
clusion that it was his duty, in the interest 
of science, to proceed. 

He determined, however, that we would 


36 


A Study of Destiny. 


go unattended to pursue our exploration 
on the following day, and his last words 
were to caution me to supply myself with 
plenty of matches : “ For,” he said, with a 
smile, “it is the custom of these tricky 
dogs, when an independent tourist refuses 
their guidance, to creep after him, and 
blow out his torch in the most bewildering 
part of the crypts ; thinking that after he 
has spent a gruesome night in the society 
of mummies he will be only too willing to 
pay for guides in the future.” 


CHAPTER II 


I T was scarcely dawn when the professor, 
already dressed, awoke me, and in- 
formed me in his quiet, insistent way, that 
it was time to get up. Lazily and drowsily 
I complied. Whilst dressing, the voices 
of two men talking in Arabic in a half- 
whisper outside my window attracted my 
attention. I recognized one as our guide 
of yesterday, and the other as our Arab 
servant, who, by honest right, at that 
moment should have been preparing our 
breakfast. Something in the tones of the 
guide’s voice — although I could not under- 
stand a word he said — impressed me with 


38 A Study of Destiny. 

the idea that my companion and myself 
were the subjects of conversation. 

Just at this juncture, the professor 
re-entered the room ; instantly, his atten- 
tion was also caught by the suspicious 
undertone of the voices. He understood 
Arabic. Giving me a sign of silence, he 
quickly crept to the window to listen. 
He jotted down in his ubiquitous note book 
every word, while a benign smile of satis- 
faction rose like a Nile moon over his 
face. In a few moments the conversation 
stopped, the guide departed, and our Arab 
servant, in the most acceptable broken 
English, announced breakfast. 

Over our frugal meal, the professor con- 
fided to me that his suspicions of the pre- 
vious day were too well founded. From the 
guide’s words he had learned that we had 
been suspected of trying to find out too 
much, and that our Arab servant had been 
warned to give no information whatever 


A Shidy of Destiny. 39 

in any way relating to the tombs. From 
the trend of their conversation there was 
no longer any doubt left in the professor’s 
mind, not only that there was a tomb 
unrevealed, but that it was the most 
valuable quarry of all, and contained large 
quantities of jewels and relics. It was a 
concerted plan of the Arabs who knew the 
secret, to pillage it when an auspicious 
opportunity offered. Exactly what their 
attitude would be towards us when they 
found out that we had dispensed with their 
services, the professor had not gathered. 
The servant had been simply warned to 
look out for his own interests, as someday 
we probably would not return. 

I must confess I felt a bit anxious as we 
made preparations to start. The professor 
had told me all kinds of stories, about 
torches being blown out in difficult pas- 
sages, and people starving to death before 
their absence was discovered. But the 


40 A Study of Destiny. 

genial old soul somewhat reassured me by 
saying, “ I have prepared for such an 
emergency, and can foil even an Arab’s 
cupidity,” at the same time producing from 
his traveller’s hold-all, two folding lanterns 
with dark slides and a small can of oil that 
he quietly slipped into his pocket. 

Once more we started, and in order to 
divert the suspicion of the Arabs, we 
visited various other points of interest, 
before directing our steps towards the 
place we planned to reach. Barring the 
young Englishman, we were the only 
strangers in the vicinity. The season was 
far advanced, and every one who could 
had fled to escape the intense heat. As 
for the stranger with the sad face, he was 
seldom to be seen. Occasionally we 
encountered him in passing through 
labyrinths leading from tomb to tomb, but 
each time he appeared deliberately to 
avoid us. We noticed that all the Arabs 


A Study of Destiny. 41 

seemed to have some superstitious fear of 
him ; they never went near him on any 
pretext, and even the little children, who 
usually beset every stranger for alms, 
crept away and left him alone. From his 
appearance and dress he was a gentleman, 
yet one could not see him without wonder- 
ing at the nameless shadow that seemed 
always hanging about him — a shadow of 
gloom, of despair, of melancholy, of fore- 
boding that it would be impossible to 
depict. One felt it. 

When at last we reached the point 
where we had discontinued our investi- 
gations on the previous day, the professor 
lighted the lanterns, and without a word 
plunged forward into the all-encompassing 
darkness of the subterranean approaches 
to the more remote tombs. Occasionally 
he stopped and flashed the light on some 
piece of carving or inscription upon the 
walls, and I noticed at the beginning of 


42 A study of Destiny. 

every passage he carefully examined the 
left-hand side, and taking some wax from 
his leather geologist’s satchel, he would 
take impressions of a small cypher or 
character that had completely escaped my 
notice. At first I thought that his object 
in making such observations was simply 
precautionary that we might be able to 
retrace our footsteps ; but a little later he 
explained to me that in his enthusiasm he 
had not for a moment entertained a 
thought of danger; he had simply dis- 
covered some cypher that was not found 
in any of the other tombs, and which, he 
considered, was an important clue to the 
tomb of which he was in search. 

Up to that moment we had not heard 
anything of the Arabs, nor were we molested 
in any way. But just v/hen I had about 
overcome my apprehensions, the professor 
turned the dark slide of his lantern, and 
quietly drew me into a narrow niche hewn 


A Study of Destiny. 43 

in the solid wall. The sudden darkness 
was intense ; our eyes unable to adjust 
themselves reflected again and again the 
brilliant colourings of some of the figures 
and inscriptions we had seen in the light. 
The stillness was almost maddening, but 
suddenly it was broken by a slight patter- 
ing shuffle, and we became conscious of 
the naked body of an Arab crawling past 
us like a snake. It was some time before 
we ventured out, and when we did, it was 
to retrace our steps and return home 
for the day. 

The professor spent the rest of the 
afternoon in arranging the different im- 
pressions he had taken. He placed them 
carefully according to the drawing he had 
made of the tombs, and when he had them 
symmetrically fitted, he called me to his 
side, and pointed out with a grim look of 
satisfaction, that every one of the marks 
led direct to that portion of the tomb 


44 


A study of Destiny. 


where our guide had lost his temper on 
the day before. “ And yet,” the professor 
said, and he rubbed the little black pipe 
with a new vigour, “ I would swear, after 
my examination yesterday, that there is 
nothing there but solid rock.” 

J ust at this moment the young English- 
man came up the street, and passed the 
doorway. He looked towards us, and that 
indescribable something in his face so 
attracted the professor that he forgot alike 
his chart and the wax impressions, and 
stepping to the door, watched the stranger 
go towards the ruins of the Temple of El 
Karnak. When the old man turned back 
to his charts, it was to think and not to 
work. His old withered hands listlessly 
pushed the wax impressions at random 
across the paper, even the little black pipe 
was forgotten, and I could see that the 
human mystery embodied in the person of 
the young man had a greater claim on his 


A Study of Destiny. 


45 


heart, than even that of time and Thebes 
which he had so determined to unearth. 

Watching him sit there I gradually fell 
asleep in my chair, and after a long refresh- 
ing nap, I woke to find it near midnight, 
and the old man yet wrapt in profound 
meditation in the same position. Wishing 
to divert his thoughts, 1 touched him on 
the shoulder and suggested a walk before 
turning in for the night. He started at 
my touch, and assented by simply putting 
on his hat and mechanically following me 
out into the silent street. 

We wandered aimlessly in the direction 
of the ruins of El Karnak. It was such a 
night as one can see only in Egypt, and 
that, too, but during certain seasons of the 
year. The stillness of death seemed to 
reign perpetually about this place; there 
was no breeze, no sound of man or beast 
— everything on earth seemed painfully 
hushed, while in the heavens a large pallid 


46 A Study of Destiny. 

moon hung like the ghost of some dead 
world unrested and alone. 

The heat was intense, a dull torrid heat 
that rose in filmy waves from the desert, 
that parched the lips, that swelled the 
veins like the kiss of a fever when one’s 
strength is gone. The low whitewashed 
huts around the ruins were silent and 
grim. What insignificant kennels they 
were in the shadow of those majestic 
columns and sculptures, magnificent and 
stately, even in their dilapidation and 
decay ! One could imagine the closed 
eyelids, the parted lips, the distorted limbs 
those squalid huts covered from the sky — 
covered, yes! that the spectres of the 
moonlight might not mock the miserable 
descendants of the past. Without utter- 
ing a word, we traversed court after court, 
gazed up at the massive pillars that rose 
like giants towards the unbroken silence of 
the sky. On every side were ruins, but 


A Study of Destiny. 


47 


what ruins ! — majesty, grandeur, intellect, 
superb intellect — had designed and erected 
these monuments that even time’s voracious 
teeth had failed to totally destroy — verily 
fitting sepulchres for kings. 

Was it then indeed a wonder that those 
who had built these stupendous monuments 
to endure through centuries in witness of 
their mundane glory, their giant prowess, 
sought to preserve against the cruel 
ravages of time their dead, by swathing in 
bands of linen and embalming spices the 
hands that imperiously held sceptres or 
toiled, and the heads that devised or that 
ruled, and the bodies they had worshipped, 
hoping that they might also endure, if they 
could not live for ever ? 

And yet what vanity, for mortals to 
strive to cope with and thwart the 
inevitable — the law of Destiny — they could 
not keep the dead from decay, nor their 
temples from crumbling, nor their dynasties 


48 A Study of Destiny. 

from devastation of usurpers. Strange 
and humiliating it is to our own era that we 
of to-day, have learned so little from the 
lessons of the past. Their religions are 
dead — their gods are broken — their 
dilapidated temples but monuments to 
folly. The mummies with all their spiced 
wrappings are powdered into dust, and 
more repulsive still, some worms have been 
cheated, while others have been fed like 
vampires. And yet, we with our boasted 
civilization, with our creeds and Chris- 
tianities, we are consumed by a vanity that 
I question is not greater than theirs. We 
make no more gods of stone, but we make 
others less tangible — gods of ideas, gods 
of theories, gods that leave no visible 
ruins, except in the betrayed hearts of 
those who once were worshippers. Our 
various religions have built temples, it is 
true, but not like the temples of past 
faiths. We have no longer time to chisel 


A Study of Destiny. 


49 


the pictured story of our era thereupon, 
and we count, alas, their glory in the 
richness of their revenue. We make no 
visible sacrifices of blood and flesh — no, 
but in our selfishness and ambitious strife 
our paths are strewn with more damning 
sacrifices. We substitute creeds for deeds 
— creeds that torture, that shackle, and 
blunt our consciences — that make us 
slaves to the egotism of some man-god, 
that in the end change and are futile and 
leave us wrecked and stranded in our 
disillusions. 

And yet the law of Life and Death goes 
on the same — the flowers of the field 
bloom to fade and so do we. Children 
come and go as the buds on the trees, they 
laugh, they play, they look bright as the 
flowers, but like the flowers, they are 
hardly conscious of the inherited worm 
of disease that comes creeping to their 
heart’s core, to blight and destroy them. 


50 A Study of Destiny. 

Yet do we pay tribute to shrines — we pray 
to this saint, and that god, but the canker 
increases, we suffer, and the end comes. 
It is only when confronting a supreme 
moment that we realize how terrible, how 
inevitable is Destiny — only when we are 
helpless — when we are stunned by a 
something we cannot resist — then in half- 
cowardice the head is bowed, and the lips 
murmur, “ Thy will be done,” and yet the 
soul is in rebellion. Too late, too late ! 

We would disallow and cavil with the 
righteousness of the claim on man of that 
Destiny we recognize in nations — we 
would place ourselves on a pinnacle, and 
dream we see all because we see a little. 
Poor pigmies that we are, we say we will 
control when we are the controlled — the 
very most servants who obey without 
knowing the meaning of obedience. To 
pacify ourself each one makes an imagery 
of God to refuge his own irresponsibility. 


51 


A Study of Destiny. 

We feel dominated by the Infinite Who 
creates us, endows our being with thoughts, 
and feelings, and conscience, and spirit. 
Yet we fain do not imitate. We were born 
to reproduce and perfect our own species, 
see how woefully do we fulfil our mis- 
sion — we transgress the God-given laws 
of nature, then idiotically wonder at their 
imperfections and cruelty when the inex- 
orable penalties are exacted. In these 
transgressions we are worse than brutes. 
For we know evil, yet resist good. And 
yet, the world goes on, seed-time and 
harvest come and go. Nations rise and 
fall, and so do men, but they reck not what 
they sow in seed-time, or reap “ what they 
have not sowed." The inscrutable law of 
Destiny is above all, around all, and in all, 
is all. It encompasses the beginning and 
the end — it is Truth and Falsehood — the 
good and the evil and the consequences 
that follow. It is God the Infinite, man 


g2 A Shidy of Destiny. 

the finite — and love and good which is the 
mystery that conceals the purpose. 

m * 

As I stood beneath those gigantic struc- 
tures of the past, these thoughts ran 
through my brain. For the first time I 
fully realized the littleness of man and 
the greatness of that controlling law of 
Destiny which has been worshipped for 
centuries under so many names. I turned 
to my old friend, and was surprised to find 
that the effect on him had been similar. 
One could read on his face his soul’s 
surprise — see the breakdown of old ideas 
and orthodox beliefs. But, we had not 
learned the lesson. We had but opened 
the covers of the book. Men, like children, 
are fond of pictures. In a moment we 
would see one, an illustration, an etching 
from Fate’s pencil, to be for ever engraven 
upon our hearts. 


A Shidy of Destiny. 53 

We had been advancing in silence 
towards the centre of that great “ Hall of 
Columns,” where the broken portion of 
the roof has still remained, when we were 
startled by a low sob that seemed to come 
from a corner of the ruins where the 
gathered shadows, even in daylight, are 
sombre and almost impenetrable. 

It was more than a sob — it was a moan 
from behind clenched teeth — a moan that 
seemed more than human in its intensity — 
until it became the voice of pain that dashed 
itself from pillar to pillar, that echoed in 
our ears and chilled the hot blood that but 
a moment before was coursing through our 
veins. We stood rooted to the spot, 
possessed by a terror that is indescrib- 
able. We looked at one another, but our 
blanched faces frightened us in the light of 
the pallid moon that covered all with its 
ghostly shimmer. The awful silence that 
followed the cry seemed more than I could 


54 ^ Study of Destiny. 

bear — I could hear the blood surging up 
my throat, singing past my ears, and 
stealing in upon my brain till every nerve 
and muscle grew paralyzed with fear. 
Again we heard that heart-rending cry, 
and in our excited senses we saw it — saw 
it in a thousand shapes and forms, crossing 
from under the shattered roof, breaking 
itself against the stone idols and broken 
gods, and moaning an anguish in our ears 
that made our very hearts stand still as 
we hearkened. 

There could no longer be any doubt ; it 
was the cry of a soul in agony. Not an 
ordinary soul, but one of those sensitive, 
yet strong souls that shut themselves in 
with their sorrows, that cry only in the 
silence of the night when there is no one 
to share the Gethsemane of their anguish. 
Instinctively we started forward to help — 
to console, to do anything, in fact, to keep 
that sound from being repeated. But we 


A Study of Destiny. 


55 


had scarcely moved our feet in the soft 
sand, when from out of the shadows there 
appeared the apparition of a young man, 
the very man who had so often occupied 
our thoughts — whose mournful but hand- 
some face we had remarked on our first 
arrival. Slowly, but with firm steps, he 
crossed to the centre and then stood still — 
still as the huge idol that lay across his 
path. His hair was thrown back from his 
brow, and his strong, manly face, marked 
by pain and gloom, stood out in bold relief 
against the enormous pillars that flanked 
him. His loose English shirt was open 
from throat to waist, while his hands were 
clutched on his breast as if ready to tear 
his heart out and dash it against the 
stones. 

As he stood there, he seemed to look 
upward into the very eyes of Heaven ; he 
was more than a man for the moment, he 
was a god, questioning the mercy of a 


56 A Study of Destiny. 

Greater. But suddenly his whole appear- 
ance changed ; he seemed to writhe with 
pain, and pressing his hands still tighter 
over his heart, he clenched his teeth to 
keep back the cry that even then was 
again rising from his very soul. He 
battled with it, but the agony was too 
great. It burst from him — burst through 
his clenched teeth, and with a moan like 
that of a hunted, wounded animal, he 
staggered forward and fell across the 
idol, as one dead. 

In a second the old professor was 
leaning over the prostrate form, and wdth 
the tenderness of a woman he brushed the 
great drops of perspiration from the brow, 
rubbed the cold hands that lay motionless, 
and as there were no signs of life, he 
looked up anxiously at me, and then back 
again at the body lying there as inanimate 
as the broken idol at his side. But there 
was motion — a motion that caused us to 


A Study of Destiny. 


57 


almost hold our breath with suspense — 
there was something on the breast under 
the thin silk shirt that moved — something 
that somehow like a presentiment of evil, 
filled us with dread and dismay. Involun- 
tarily I too had drawn near the sufferer, 
and put out my hand to raise the folds of 
the shirt. As I did so, I touched some- 
thing that made me gasp with terror, 
something so horrible, so ghastly, that 
even now as I write, I can vividly recall 
the sensation. My hand had come in 
contact with a cold clammy something that 
lived there — it had moved under my touch, 
writhed, as if it were in torment. I looked 
closely. There was the head of a snake, 
with sightless eyes quivering beneath my 
fingers ! One glance was sufficient, I 
staggered back and dropped senseless from 
the shock that my good friend thought 
would there and then prove fatal — but, re- 
sulted in making me keep my bed for weeks. 


CHAPTER III 



HEN I recovered consciousness I 


» y found myself alone with my old 
companion. With the greatest difficulty 
after this hideous episode he got 
me back to our abode, but days 
and even weeks passed before he 
mentioned what had happened after 
I lost consciousness. At last, one 
evening he told me that just as I fell, 
the stranger had revived and opened 
his eyes, and with a surprised, terrified 
look he hastily pulled his coat together 
over his breast, sprang to his feet and 
without one word disappeared among 
the ruins. 


A Study of Destiny. 


59 


Even then, the professor would not 
credit what I averred I had seen. It was 
in vain that I tried to convince him. 
Finally, thinking to humour me he said, 
that such an eccentric individual might 
probably carry as a pet a snake, such as I 
described. 

One night, as we sat talking the 
strange occurrence over, the individual in 
question came slowly towards our hut. 
For a moment we imagined he was going 
to speak to us — there seemed a glad look 
in his eyes on seeing me again — but instead 
of speaking, he slowly raised his cap, bowed, 
and passed on, once more in the direction 
of the ruins of El Karnak. 

The professor was very pleased to get 
even that recognition. He had made up 
his mind that the mysterious individual 
would some day, in some way be instru- 
mental in giving the key to the secret that 
he so earnestly desired to solve. He 


6o 


A Study of Destiny. 

could give no actual reason for his conclu- 
sion, except that he felt that such would 
be the case. By some undefined intuitive 
force, his soul had already come in touch 
with the possibilities of the future. He 
felt confident of it, and yet, although it 
was his earnest desire, the assurance of 
the knowledge brought no happiness. 
Perhaps, his soul gazing into the future 
saw such trials and sufferings that it 
deemed the price too great for all it had to 
learn and irrevocably must endure. 

My convalescence warranted our resum- 
ing our work at Thebes. Every morning 
we would cross the Nile, and sometimes 
not return to our hut till late at night. 
Again and again we met our strange friend 
in our wanderings, but he always appeared 
to avoid us ; even the genial professor 
was gradually coming to the conclusion 
that we might as well try and form a 
speaking acquaintance with the Sphinx, 


A Study of Destiny. 6i 

when through a very simple incident, one 
morning the barrier was broken. How 
often it is so in life — when we have ceased 
to plan, we become successful. 

For a long time the professor had 
been engaged in taking impressions from 
certain hieroglyphics he had found on 
the murals of the passages. By sub- 
sequently putting the segments together, 
he discovered that they formed a key, 
and by this he proceeded to make his 
way from passage to passage. On 
the day in question, however, he was 
baffled completely by what really seemed 
to be a simple character. The old man 
had tried again and again to make the 
sections fit, in order that he might be 
enabled to go on with his conceived plan. 
But there was something wrong, and after 
trying over and over again, he at last gave 
up the task, with a sigh of real despair. 
At that moment, however, the stranger 


62 A study of Destiny. 

stepped towards us from one of the 
passages. He seemed to take in the whole 
difficulty at a glance, and I’aising his hat 
to the professor he said, “ Sir, if you will 
allow me, I will show you what is wrong.” 
Without waiting for a reply he re-arranged 
the sections, and in a few seconds the 
difficulty was solved. 

The professor’s gratitude knew no 
bounds. He expressed himself in both 
German and English in the same breath, 
and was only checked when the stranger 
said quietly, “ You are only at the be- 
ginning ; you have not yet solved the 
difficulty.” But the hope in the old 
man’s heart was hard to kill. With 
gratitude and satisfaction, he again shook 
the young man’s hand and turned to 
resume his work. 

The stranger disappeared almost as 
quickly as he had come. But the ice had 
been broken, and the professor looked 


A St tidy of Destiny. ^ 63 

forward with joyful expectation to another 
meeting. He rubbed his hands with 
delight, as he thought how he had intui- 
tively divined from the first, that this 
strange individual possessed the secret of 
which he was in quest. He pointed out 
to me with what perfect ease he had 
arranged the sections, a thing impossible 
without a previous knowledge of the 
meaning of the cyphers. “ But where do 
your figui'es lead to, after all ? ” I 
enquired. The old man pointed to the 
odd-looking chart of cyphers before him. 
“ The last one, that must contain the 
secret,” he said, “ is according to this, 
formed by the combination of the first 
seven symbols. We must be close to it 
here — let us look for it.” So saying he 
picked up one of the lanterns and started 
forward. We were indeed close to the 
end. A few paces brought us to the same 
small chamber that we had visited on our 


64 A Study of Destiny. 

first day with the .guide, and to my 
amazement, we beheld, carved in the 
centre of the roof, the curious looking 
symbol for which we sought, and was 
the counterpart of the one on the chart. 
With a look of satisfaction and triumph, 
the old man gave vent to his feelings 
by executing what, I am sure, he must 
have intended for a German version of a 
Highland fling. But the temperature 
of Egypt was not suited to such vigorous 
gymnastics, and the result was a quick 
collapse of the aged and honorable 
professor. 

As soon as he had recovered from his 
exertions, he proceeded to examine the 
curious symbol. He could not interpret 
it as far as language was concerned, but 
he had no great difficulty in making out 
that, although having a distinct character 
of its own, it was in reality made up of the 
first seven signs. And yet he could not 


A Study of Destiny. 65 

disguise the fact that he was no nearer the 
solution than before. It was true he had 
discovered something strange, something 
not discovered by other archeologists. 
But, after all, it was only a curious piece 
of carving in an empty chamber — a cypher 
without a solution, a door perhaps, without 
a key. It was in vain, he tried the walls 
for some opening or secret passage, in 
vain also that with his hammer he rapped 
on the floor, and the roof. All sounded 
the same. He but aroused echoes — 
echoes that mocked his hopes — echoes 
that died away in space and left him in 
despair. 

It was a long time before he could bring 
himself to acknowledge that he was 
completely baffled, after all those days and 
weeks of toilsome research. He had 
sedulously worked up to the point when 
the signs he had discovered were obviously 
finger-posts, to guide through all those 


66 


A Study of Destiny. 


puzzling labyrinths, and subterranean 
passages, and that a sign made up of 
seven cyphers, if found, would undeniably 
be the open sesame to that secret tomb, 
the El Dorado of his dreams. Alas ! the 
mysterious symbol, the coveted heptagon, 
was found in the most insignificant 
chamber, a mere blind room scarcely ten 
feet square, built of Thebian marble, 
marked by no other sign, word or hiero- 
glyphic, except, that one strange carving 
in the centre. Yet the point of entrance 
to the great tomb, if any existed, remained 
inexorably hidden. Under great stress 
the old man once more searched every 
portion of the masonry, and his little 
faithful hammer noisily interrogated its 
surfaces. No use. I could see his eyes 
brim with tears, as he prepared to depart. 
He did not speak until we reached our hut 
and as he bade me good-night, I knew 
from the dejected tone of his voice that, 


A Study of Destmy. C f 

for the first time in his life, he had 
altogether lost heart. 

On the following morning, however, 
with renewed pluck, we started as before, 
again reached the catacombs, found the 
passages we had threaded the previous 
day, and after some difficulty once again 
we occupied the little chamber marked by 
that one significant symbol of seven. 
Again and again, the professor with his 
indefatigable pertinacity, tried by every 
means in his knowledge and power, to see 
if he could not wrest from these solid 
walls any clue to the secret passage that 
might lead to the goal, he hoped against 
hope to attain. Hour after hour passed 
without promise; the solid blocks of granite 
piteously echoed back, again and again, 
the metallic blows of his hammer, unre- 
lentlessly refusing to yield their secret, 
until at last, worn out and exhausted, the 
poor professor threw himself down on the 


68 


A Study of Destiny. 


slabs, and abandoned himself for the mo- 
ment to disappointment and despair. 
I could not bear to stay and be a witness 
of his grief, so I took my lantern, and 
made off into one of the adjacent passages 
on a little exploration tour of my own. I 
was careful to keep to the one passage, 
not daring to venture by myself into 
others, fearful I should get lost in their 
intricate labyrinths. I had scarcely gone 
any distance, when my foot struck against 
the naked body of an Arab, who was 
crawling away from the chamber in which 
I had left the professor. The man had 
evidently been surreptitiously listening to 
every word we had said, and in the one 
glance I got at his face, I recognized him 
as one of the gang from which on the first 
morning we had selected our guide. Fully 
expecting him to spring at me from the 
darkness, I quickly drew my revolver ; but 
instead of attacking me, he mockingly 


A Study of Destiny. 69 

laughed, and cursed all Christians as he 
made away and disappeared. Hastily re- 
tracing my steps after this occurrence, I 
was surprised and considerably startled to 
hear voices issuing from the chamber 
where I had left the professor alone. I 
rushed forward to protect him if need be, 
but, to my amazement, instead of finding 
him surrounded by villainous Arabs, I 
found him in the centre of the chamber, 
energetically shaking both hands of the 
young man who had already commanded 
so much of our attention, and profusely 
thanking him. 

On my approach, my old friend, with 
voice trembling through emotion, told me 
in a few w'ords, that the stranger had come 
of his own free will to act as our guide, 
and had offered to show us the very tomb 
we were in search of, which he and a few 
Arabs only knew. 

“ Yes,” said the stranger, turning to the 


70 


A Study of Destiny. 


professor, “ I will show you what you seek. 
Often have I desired to reveal my know- 
ledge of the secret, but have waited until 
I could impart it to someone who would 
realise its historic and scientific value, and 
not regard it simply as a treasure trove to 
be pillaged. For this reason, I have, unob- 
served by you, watched you at work. I 
have even heard the words you have 
spoken to your friend. To-day, I have 
been so touched by your overwhelming 
disappointment, I could no longer refrain 
from telling you the thing you have toiled 
so faithfully to achieve, is now close at 
your hand. Do not thank me. Under 
different conditions, I probably would have 
used my present knowledge for my own 
advantage. The honour of the discovery 
would, however, be useless to me at this 
point of my calamitous career. But come, 
we have no time to waste in words — there 
is also danger in our being seen together, 


A Study of Destiny. 71 

particularly in this place. Meet me 
to-night at the entrance to this crypt, 
and I will gladly reveal all to you.” 


CHAPTER IV 



HEN night fell, faithful to the 


» V young man’s instructions, we 
crossed the river from El Karnak to join 
him at the entrance to the tombs. I have 
often wondered since, why it was that both 
the professor and myself, were more than 
usually impressed with the sweetness of 
the outside world. As we walked down 
that silent, mysterious valley to the 
“ Tombs of the Kings ” over and over 
again we instinctively remarked the 
brilliancy of the stars, the radiance of the 
moonlight, whereas, the lower we 
descended into the valley, the more we 
seemed to shrink from the task that lay 
before us. Whatever could it portend ? 


A Study of Destiny, 


73 


The hills that hid the resting-place of 
kings rose dark and sinister in the silence 
of the night and cut sharply against the 
sky. The entrance to the tombs now 
looked like black hungry mouths — ^vampire 
mouths — ^yawning for the bodies of the 
living or the dead, while the very air 
seemed to thrill with presentiments that 
we felt, but could not understand. During 
the latter part of our journey we did not 
speak, and it was a veritable relief, when at 
last we discerned our strange friend 
pacing to and fro before the appointed 
place of meeting. 

His explicit instructions had been to 
carry no lighted lanterns, or do anything 
that might attract the attention of the 
Arabs, as we passed through El Karnak. 
We were also cautioned to guard well that 
we were not followed, and, the first ques- 
tion our new friend asked was, if we had 
been observed. We replied in the negative 


74 


A Study of Destiny. 


— as far as we knew, we had got through 
unseen. Having satisfied himself that 
there were no Arabs skulking about the 
tombs, his caution dictated that we must 
all creep on our hands and knees, until we 
got some distance underground, before we 
lit our lanterns. 

It was thus we started, our strange 
guide first, then the professor, and lastly 
myself. Slowly and noiselessly we went 
deeper and deeper into the tomb. At 
every turning, our guide waited for us, 
and led us safely from one passage into 
another. The darkness was intense, and 
the heat and closeness almost insufferable. 
The only noise that broke the silence, was 
when occasionally we disturbed some large 
bat, and heard the whisk of his black 
wings, as he flew past us and disappeared. 
Once we thought we heard voices behind 
us, but having waited some time without a 
recurrence of the sound, we came to the 


A Study of Destiny. 

conclusion that our strained senses had 
deceived us, and cautiously proceeded. 

At last our companion deemed it safe to 
light the lanterns, and with their help we 
soon reached the small chamber with the 
strange, mysterious symbol of seven. 

Turning to the professor, our companion 
said, “ Now, sir, you see that I have 
followed exactly the same route that you 
so carefully, and wonderfully worked out 
by those characters that you discovered. 
All your calculations were right up to this 
point, yet, it would have been impossible 
for you to have gone further by calculation, 
unless, by some lucky chance you had hit 
upon the secret. The Egyptians have 
always been famous for their intricate 
architectural devices. It will never cease 
to be the wonder of the world as to how 
the colossal stones that form the Pyramid 
of Cheops were ever placed in position. 
But what will you think, when I tell you 


76 A Study of Destiny. 

that the wonder of this chamber is that 
one of its entire stone walls is in reality a 
swing-door, and a door, too, that the 
strength of a child might open, provided 
that the child knew the secret ?” 

So saying he looked upward at the 
strange symbol in the centre of the roof, 
and then following a certain angle, he 
placed his left foot in a slight mark of 
wear on the rock at his feet. With his 
right hand he barely touched one side of 
the wall, when to our astonishment, the 
entire side of the chamber swung round 
on its axis, leaving an opening on either 
side by which a person might easily pass 
through. We wistfully entered, and found 
ourselves in a chamber exactly corre- 
sponding to the one we had left. 

Our companion went through the same 
process he had to open the wall, and with 
a slight noise the huge stone swung back 
into its place. 


A Study of Destiny. 


77 


Passing through this chamber, we 
reached a narrow passage, which, in its 
turn, led us to the inside of an inverted 
cone, down whose sloping sides we were 
preparing to descend, when our companion 
called our attention to a huge block of 
stone resting on the edge of the cone, and 
balanced in such a way that the slightest 
touch would send it crashing to the bottom. 
“ That stone,” he said, “was placed there 
simply as a seal when the occasion 
required it ; once it falls,” he said slowly, 
“ the tomb below will be sealed for ever.” 

In descending, we had to go round and 
round the cone, exactly like following 
the spiral threads of an immense screw. 
In doing this, we were forced to pass 
under the enormous stone several times, 
and I found it impossible to do so without 
experiencing a shudder of fear, lest it 
might be dislodged and fall. At last we 
reached the base of the cone, and stopped 


78 


A Study of Destiny, 


for a moment under a small arch, lost in 
amazement at the sight that greeted our 
eyes. We were standing on the threshold 
of the entrance of an immense tomb, larger 
even than that of the King’s Chamber at 
Gizeh. It was of great height, and built 
in the shape of a seven-sided pyramid. 
The walls, floor, and roof were of polished 
Thebian marble, that reflected, and magni- 
fied in every direction the puny light of 
our lanterns. The bodies of seven 
mummies lay on raised stone platforms at 
the seven points of the chamber, and were 
so arranged, that the echo that was made 
by the mural of the chamber, at each point 
where the seven bodies lay, seemed to 
repeat the slightest whisper from one 
mummy to the other until, after circling 
round the seven, it ended where it started 
with redoubled volume. 

It was the professor who unconsciously 
was the first to evoke this astonishing 


A Shidy of Destiny. 79 

acoustic phenomenon. He had lingered an 
instant longer than had we, at the entrance, 
absolutely spell-bound. Reverently the 
old man had taken off his well-worn straw 
hat, and as he did so there fell from his 
lips, “ Oh, God ! How wonderful ! how 
wonderful ! ” Mummy after mummy ap- 
peared to repeat the words, and as the 
seventh loudly emitted them, the old man 
clutched my arm for support, whilst his 
trembling lips involuntarily repeated the 
litany accepted of the dead — and again, this 
weird, mysterious echo, swung round the 
strange circle until it rebounded back to 
the professor, then floated upwards to- 
wards the roof and died away. 

The effect in the sepulchral stillness 
prevailing here, can be more easily ima- 
gined than described. A sensation of awe, 
and reverence for the mighty dead com- 
pletely possessed us. As we stood there, 
our modern race seemed made up of 


8o 


A Study of Destiny. 

pigmies, our vaunted inventions as naught 
compared with the intellect and science 
of those dead Egyptians who had plan- 
ned and erected all these marvellous 
structures. 

But alas ! what a sight of pillage and 
of vandalism was revealed to us as we 
proceeded ! 

Every sarcophagus had been burst open, 
except one, and even it had not quite 
escaped violation by the Arabs or probably 
earlier races who had invaded this wonder- 
ful crypt. Most of the mummies had 
been ruthlessly rifled. The linen ban- 
dages that had swathed the mummies had 
been indecently stripped completely off 
some, but more frequently they had been 
simply wrenched off the breasts, and the 
jewels and relics taken. Whoever the 
marauders had been, everywhere was 
evidenced extreme, reckless haste. Jewels 
and rings were scattered here and there 


A Shidy of Destiny. 8i 

on the floor, as though a whirlwind had 
swept over the place, and close to the 
entrance was the skeleton of a full-grown 
man, who had fallen with his avaricious 
hands full of jewels, and perished as he 
had fallen. The posture, and appearance, 
and proximity to the entrance, told its own 
tale — he had evidently been surprised, or 
overtaken by some calamity, and tried 
to escape with simply what he could grab, 
and red-handed, for some unaccountable 
reason had fallen, never again to rise. 

The unopened sarcophagus was the 
special object of interest to the professor. 
It stood apart from the others making up 
the seven, and occupied a position of 
distinction, almost in the centre of the 
tomb. It was unlike the others in shape, 
and was unembellished by any Egyptian 
characters, except one curious symbol, 
which the professor examined v/ith avidity. 
Taking some tracings from his pocket, he 


82 


A study of Destiny. 


scrutinized and compared with the symbol. 
At last, looking up triumphantly, he said, 
much agitated by his excitement : 

“If what I think I have found here 
proves true, this will be the most valuable 
discovery of any heretofore made in 
connection with the history of Ancient 
Egypt.” Growing more calm, he explained 
that the greatest puzzle to all Egyptolo- 
gists had been, and to the present moment 
still was, the empty sarcophagus found in 
the Great Pyramid — the Pyramid of 
Cheops. He then in a few words told us 
that amongst the writings of Diodorous, in 
his description of the Pyramids dealing 
with the period of Cheops, he had clearly 
written : — “ ‘Although this king had in- 
tended this Pyramid for his sepulchre, 
yet it happened that he was never buried 

there For the people, being 

exasperated by reason of the toilsomeness 
of the work, threatened to tear in pieces 


A Study of Destiny. 


83 


his dead body, and with ignominy throw it 
out of the sepulchre ; whereupon, when 
dying, he commanded his friends to bury 
him in another place.’ ” 

“ This curious sign,” continued the pro- 
fessor, “ is exactly similar to one found in 
the Great Pyramid, amongst the inscrip- 
tions relating to the First Dynasty ; there- 
fore, it is not illogical to conclude that this 
sarcophagus, before us, contains none other 
than the lost mummy of Cheops. We 
must return to-morrow,” the professor was 
just saying — and simultaneously with the 
last words a slight, yet ominous sound 
startled us. 

It might have been imperceptible, but for 
the echo of the tomb. It was at most 
only a slight sound, but one that struck 
terror to our hearts and sent a cold shiver 
through every nerve and vein. It came 
from the opening of the great cone through 
which we had passed. This was sufficient 


84 A Study of Destiny. 

to tell us that we had been betrayed, and 
that in another second we would face a 
doom too terrible to even imagine. 

Instinctively we rushed towards the 
opening by which we had entered. Too 
late ! A mocking, fiendish laugh warned 
us of our danger. The next moment 
there was a low rumbling sound, and then 
a deafening crash that resounded like a 
thousand cannon about our ears. We 
realized that the stone had fallen and the 
opening was sealed for ever 1 


CHAPTER V 


I WILL not dwell upon our feelings, it 
will be sufficient to trust to the 
imagination of the reader, to portray what 
agony the mere idea of being incarcerate, 
buried alive, would create. The greater 
the loss, the more quietly oftentimes it is 
borne, and it is the same, I expect, under 
pressure of any very great shock. The 
surprise of any new situation, be it mis- 
fortune or success, often robs the mind for 
the moment of its anxiety. The old 
professor, who twelve hours before had 
almost cried like a child when baffled in his 
purpose, now when face to face with such 
a tqrriblq doom, was apparently as calqi 


86 A Study of Destiny, 

as if at that moment he was simply pursuing 
his daily work in the Mummy Department 
of the British Museum. In fact, the little 
German pipe even made its appearance — 
but not to be rubbed till it shone like 
ebony. Ah no ! just to be fondly held with 
nervous fingers, as if two long-time friends 
were about to part. 

As for our new companion, he said very 
little, but what he did say revealed in 
agonized tones the torture he was under- 
going, for the terrible misfortune, he had 
unintentionally brought upon us. He 
would not rest until he had tried every 
possible plan of escape. But what escape 
could there be from such a prison, from a 
tomb under all the others ; a place built for 
such secrecy, that it had baffled for 
centuries, every attempt at discovery. No, 
that last fiendish laugh from Arab lips 
must be the last sound of earth that we 
would ever hear. 


A Study of Destiny. 87 

Oh, God, how terrible ! That constant 
march round and round our dismal prison ; 
the pressing of our hands against the 
stones ; eyes weary with the darkness ; 
and hearts heavy with the want of hope ! 
Occasionally, we started back, sick with 
fear, as our whispers summoned the weird 
echoes, and we heard the mimicry of our 
spoken thoughts return to us, as it were 
from the long dead lips of those stark 
mummies, who had lain so many centuries 
in this cold, dark tomb. 

There was a well in the centre, a huge 
black hole plunging down into the bowels 
of the earth ; just such an one as there is in 
the centre of the Pyramids at Cairo. 
Without hope we gravitated again and 
again to its edge, and held our lanterns 
over, as we peered down into its awful, 
limitless blackness, and wondered if help 
would rise to us from its boundless depths. 
Presently one of our lanterns went out. 


88 


A Study of Destiny. 


This reminded us that the hour approached 
surely when we would have no light. 
Like children we huddled together, 
terrorized through our own helplessness ; 
and we lay down crushed, and quiet, by the 
side of that unopened coffer, which had 
lost the history of the mummy it encased. 

In time we lapsed into absolute silence. 
We tacitly knew as hour after hour slipped 
by, that we should soon be in total dark- 
ness, and left without hope of rescue. 

There are few, very few, who could 
possibly realize what such darkness means; 
or could imagine, the sensation of nameless 
dread that seizes the heart, and falls like 
an awful leaden weight upon the senses, 
and actually crushes one into the ground. 
What extraordinary visions and delusions 
pass before one’s eyes under such 
conditions ! At times strange lights, 
resembling coloured fire-flies, dance before 
the giddy senses, an4 then gome whitisfi 


A Study of Destiny. 89 

mists that grew out of the blackness, that 
took the shape of one’s thoughts, that 
frightened one with distorted forms, absent 
faces and cherished fancies — that dis- 
appear to return — that return but to taunt, 
to tantalize, and again to vanish. 

To add to the horror of the situation we 
soon began to realize that the temperature 
of the vault was considerably lower than 
that of our bodies. Possibly the extreme 
depression of our spirits affected our 
circulation ; however, by degrees the cold 
seemed to penetrate and almost freeze the 
marrow of our bones. And this was not 
all — soon came the fear that there was 
yet another affliction in store for us, that 
would add to the misery of the darkness, 
to the coldness, to the captivity. 

I could notice how terribly the cold 
seemed to affect our strange companion, 
as I heard him shudder and felt him 
shaking violently. I pulled my jacket off 


90 A Study of Destiny. 

and threw it over him. Presently a slight 
moan was perceptible, a moan, something 
so like the one we had heard before, that 
I grasped the professor’s arm. He too 
had heard it, and was sitting up to listen. 
Again we heard it slightly, but further off. 
We reached out to touch our unfortunate 
companion, but he had gone, and we could 
hear him creeping farther and farther away 
into a remote corner to suffer alone. 

We had not the heart to light our 
matches, and drag him from his hiding- 
place. Instinctively we knew we could do 
no good, and so we had to lie and listen to 
the faint moans he unwillingly emitted 
from time to time. But his agony at last 
reached its crisis, and w'e groped our way 
across the vault, to find the spasm over, and 
the poor fellow lying exhausted on the 
stones. 

Carefully and gently we raised him, and 
helped him back to the shelter of that 


91 


A Study of Destiny. 

unknown coffer, that somehow seemed to 
be our home in that dismal place. We 
had not alluded at any time to his suffering 
or its cause, and consequently we were 
rather surprised, when, of his own free will 
he commenced in a low voice to relate to 
us the following story. 



CHAPTER VI 


LACING himself against the unopened 



sarcophagus, in a weak voice he 
began : “I feel it is my duty at the 
present moment, to tell you the cause of 
my suffering, so that later on, you may 
more easily understand, that you can do 
nothing to either help or relieve. There is 
yet another motive that prompts me to 
speak — one which you may call a weak- 
ness, but a weakness that lurks in the 
breast of all mankind, namely, the desire 
to unburden the heart of every secret that 
has oppressed it, when the end draws near, 
when the tide of life is on the ebb, when 
the shoals, and the sands, and the weeds 


93 


A study of Destiny. 

can no longer be sheltered by the ripples, 
or hidden by the froth. 

“In a feWv hours I feel certain that my 
lips will be silent for ever. I am impelled 
to make this confession by a reason that 
my story itself will explain, but should it 
so happen by any extraordinary circum- 
stance that you should yet escape, I ask 
you as a last act of kindness, to leave my 
body for ever in this place. 

“In order that I may explain to you the 
strange events — that are as links in the 
chain of Destiny — that have irresistibly 
drawn me even into this very tomb, it is 
necessary that I recount certain circum- 
stances that surrounded both my parents 
and my own early life. 

“My father, Colonel Chanley, at about 
the time of my birth, commanded a very 
important garrison in the North of India, 
close to the frontier of Afghanistan. He 
had been for a long time in the Indian 


94 A Study of Destiny. 

service, and was well known and feared by 
the natives in every quarter of the country. 
He was a just man, but extremely stern, 
and severe in his execution of justice. He 
was rather advanced in life at the time of 
his marriage, and had been deemed by his 
friends a confirmed bachelor. It caused 
considerable comment when he suddenly 
announced his matrimonial intention, and 
chose for his bride, the only daughter of 
his old comrade Major Upham. My 
mother, who, though young at the time of 
her marriage, was a woman who had 
gained considerable experience in garrison 
life in India, and consequently was well 
adapted to assume the numerous social 
functions, that would later on devolve 
upon her as wife of a commanding officer. 
Like my father, all her ancestors for 
generations had been in military service, 
and like him also, for the most part in 
connection with Indian affairs. This may 


A St tidy of Destiny. 


95 


in some way have been responsible for 
her haughty and imperious bearing towards 
the natives, but on every possible occasion 
she took no pains to conceal her personal 
prejudices. People warned her again 
and again, of the danger she was running 
by incurring the hatred of such a race, but, 
neither warning, nor threat, had the effect 
'of causing a change in her feelings, or 
could induce her to adopt a more diplomatic 
attitude. After her marriage, she set 
herself deliberately to work to banish from 
the surrounding country, all wonder- 
workers, miracle-mongers, and such like, 
and so determined and antagonistic was 
she in her zeal that she did not confine her 
task to the more common fakirs, jugglers, 
and magicians, but went so far as to carry 
her persecutions against the inoffensive 
Yogis, and mystics, that are found in so 
many parts of India. 

“ There was one, however, who, in spite 


g6 A Study of Destiny. 

of all her efforts, she failed to either affect 
or dislodge. He was a man of extreme 
age, a Yogi or Mystic of the highest order, 
who dwelt far up in the mountains over- 
looking my father’s garrison. This man 
was believed by the natives to have the 
extraordinary power of predicting disaster, 
plague or death, weeks and even months 
in advance. His appearance in any place 
or village was at all times responsible for 
the entire cessation of labour or occupa- 
tion of any kind. When seen approaching, 
the entire population would turn out to 
meet him, and in ominous silence would 
follow and watch him walk, as it seemed, 
in a trance, until he reached the centre of 
the village. Once there, he would pro- 
nounce his prediction in a deep, sonorous 
voice, and as mysteriously disappear to 
the mountain whence he came. 

“ On account of the reverence with which 
he was regarded by the natives, this man 


A Study of Destiny. 


97 


of course should not have been interfered 
vrith, but yet at every opportunity my 
mother did not scruple to talk about the 
ignorant superstition of the natives, and 
cited the Yogi’s claims to prophesy, as an 
example of the evil influence of such upon 
the credulous. And so things went on 
until within a short time previous to my 
birth. About the same time there was 
some trouble expected with the Afridis on 
the Afghan frontier, and a second regiment 
of soldiers were sent up to reinforce my 
father’s command. It was a custom well 
observed in the garrison life in India, that 
on the arrival of a new regiment, an 
entertainment and ball were usually given 
to welcome the strangers to their new 
quarters, and on this occasion, it being the 
first entertainment of the kind that my 
mother had had the opportunity of giving 
since her marriage, she determined to do 
everything in her power to make it a 


98 • A Study of Destiny. 

memorable one in the eyes of her guests. 
Nothing was left undone to emphasize the 
event. It was arranged that the ball was 
to be held in the barracks, and the large 
building and the grounds around were 
gaily decorated with bunting and flags, 
until the entire place wore a festive 
appearance that must have been extremely 
gratifying to the new-comers. 

“ Everything went well, until about the 
middle of the ball, when a strange, wild 
figure emerged out of the night, and 
striding through the ball-room in the 
middle of the dancers, forced his way up 
to a dais on which my mother happened to 
be sitting, and in a deep sonorous voice 
proclaimed, as the last prediction he was 
ever destined to utter, that before the 
night would close, the garrison would be 
attacked and almost totally destroyed. 

“ During the excitement that ensued, the 
old man might have escaped, had not my 


A St tidy of Destiny. 


99 


mother pursued him into the very grounds 
and ordered the guard to place him under 
arrest. 

“ Returning to the ball-room, she restored 
festivities by ridiculing the prediction. The 
music struck up, and the dancing was 
resumed. 

“Two hours later a small fire was dis- 
covered in one of the rooms, but was 
easily extinguished. A little later, how- 
ever, the roof was found in flames, and as 
dancers, musicians, and spectators fled in 
alarm, the loud blast of a bugle was heard, 
and before the officers and men had time 
to even grasp their swords, many were 
speared, and struck down by a fierce band 
of Afridis, who, under cover of the dark- 
ness of the night, had crept in upon the 
unsuspecting revellers. For the first few 
moments, everything was wild confusion, 
but the soldiers speedily rallied, and after 
a stubborn fight, lasting for upwards of 




100 A study of Destiny. 

two hours, they drove the invaders bach to 
the mountains and restored quiet, but not 
before a considerable number of the troops 
were killed and wounded. 

“When morning broke, my mother urged 
an examination of the old man, who, all 
this time, had been confined in a cell. 
During his trial, the Yogi did not open his 
lips — not even when they had searched his 
habitation in the mountains, and returned 
with a paper covered with mystical signal, 
and having inscribed in its centre the exact 
moment of the attack. He was finally 
condemned on circumstantial evidence, as 
being in league with the insurgents, and 
marched out into the barrack grounds to 
be shot. I am ashamed to say my mother 
stood by my father’s side to witness the 
Yogi’s execution. 

“Just before the command to fire was 
given, stepping forward to the old man, 
she asked him to confess freely, and fully 


A Study of Destiny. loi 

the part he had played in the tragedy of 
the night. Drawing himself up to his full 
height, he said proudly, ‘ Madam, I have 
nothing to confess. Death to Yogis is 
nothing. We die to live. The crime that 
you are about to commit will bring its own 
punishment. As I do not desire to escape 
my fate, so shall you not be able to escape 
yours — or shall the child that you will soon 
bring into the world, escape his — remem- 
ber! I have spoken. Kill me.’ 

“As she disdainfully stepped back, the 
word of command was given, the muskets 
blazed forth, and the old man fell riddled 
with bullets. At the same moment, high 
above the roar of the guns, there rang out 
an agonizing scream of fright and terror, 
and my mother fell back fainting into my 
father’s arms. When the smoke had 
cleared away, it was apparent to everyone 
that something terrible had occurred to 
frighten her. Something seemed to have 


102 A Study of Destiny. 

leaped from the grass and struck her, but 
what it was, no one seemed to know. 
‘ Something has startled me,’ was all the 
explanation she herself would give, and so 
they carried her back into the portion of 
the barracks that had escaped the fire, and 
she remained there for some months until, 
owing to her fright, 1 was prematurely 
born. 

“ Such was the story of my birth that I 
heard when I grew old enough to under- 
stand. What had struck or frightened my 
mother on that terrible morning, I did not 
find out until years afterwards. 

“ When she had recovered sufficiently to 
travel, to the astonishment of all who knew 
her ambitious nature, she insisted that my 
father should retire from the army and re- 
turn to England. And so it was as a child 
in arms, I was taken from India and reared 
in the South of England, and for a long 
time imagined that I had been born in the 


A Study of Destiny. 103 

quiet little place my father owned in the 
vales of Devon. It was years afterwards, 
when I was quite a grown lad, that one 
evening my father told me this story of my 
birth. It was, in fact, the last evening we 
ever spent together, for shortly afterwards 
I went to college and my father was 
prevailed upon to accept an important 
position in the Civil Service and return to 
India. 

“ It was only the prospect of a title, some 
said, that induced my mother to let him 
return, but, as year after year went by, 
and still he remained, people wondered 
that she would not join him ; but as she 
made no secret of her dislike to India, it 
was put down to that, and so forgotten. 

“There were no clouds to mar the 
brightness of my youth that I can recall. 
Everyone with whom I came in contact 
predicted a brilliant career for me. True, 
in those early days almost everything I 


104 Study of Destiny. 

touched or attempted became a success. 
At college, study was a pleasure, not a 
task, and honour fell at my feet. My 
college days ended soon after I had 
attained my nineteenth year, and I 
returned home to pass a few months 
before finally deciding in what direction to 
turn my attention. 

“There was an affectionate letter from my 
father awaiting me, in which were the 
glad tidings that in another month he 
would be on his v/ay to England on a 
long leave of absence. I was so overjoyed 
at the news that on the following 
morning I started to ride into the nearest 
town to send him a cable message of our 
congratulations. On my way I had to 
pass the vicarage, and as I did so I reined 
up my horse, thinking to wave from the 
road across the rose garden a friendly 
salute to the rector. But instead of seeing 
the venerable rector, a sweet young face 


A Study of Destiny. 105 

came pushing back the roses to greet me, 
and as I leaned from my horse to* take a 
fair soft hand in mine, a woman’s dark eyes 
were lifted towards me, and in the glance 
of recognition that followed, we both felt 
that the angel of love had for the first time 
entered the secret chamber of our hearts. 

“ Yes, the little playmate of my early 
days had grown to be a woman. And 
strange to say, she had returned from a 
school in Germany on the very day that I 
had returned from College. I had almost 
forgotten her during all the years I had 
been away, but the one touch of her hand, 
the one glance of her eyes, brushed away 
the cobwebs of memory, and once more 
Lucy Marsden stood before me — ah, how 
long ago it seemed ! in her little white 
frock and pink ribbons, as we astonished 
the rector one morning by solemnly 
marching up to him and asking to be 
married. 


io6 A Study of Destiny. 

“ But she had grown to be a woman. 
Her eyes seemed to rebuke me for 
thinking of her as a child. 

“ I did not wait to see the rector, and not 
quite understanding the new feeling in my 
heart, I took the roses she gave me, and 
pressing them to my lips, rode away, 
thinking of other things, I must confess, 
than the object of my ride. 

“The first cloud came on my return home. 
My mother noticed the roses, and to my 
astonishment, she appeared sorry that 
Lucy Marsden had returned. She did all 
she could to change my feelings towards 
her, and finally tried to- make me promise 
that I would not see her again. It was 
the first misunderstanding that had ever 
arisen between us. From that time, my 
mother revealed herself to me in her true 
light. I was shocked, for she tried by the 
most ingenious pretexts to prevent my 
visits to the vicarage. 


A Study of Destiny. 107 

“But Love is an expression of life — 
greater even than the life that gave it 
birth. Lucy and I became inseparable. 
I tried once, as a test to the genuineness 
and constancy of the sentiment, to tear 
myself away from her, only to find that I 
had given her my heart, my soul, every 
feeling of noble earnestness and love that 
man ever gave, or, woman ever accepted. 
And so one night as we wandered in the 
moonlight amongst the roses of that old 
Devonshire garden, I told her of my love, 
my plans, my prospects, and looking up to 
the stars that were our witnesses, we 
pledged ourselves for ever, in the sight of 
the God we both worshipped. 

“We were so happy in the few short days 
that followed, that we dreaded each night, 
lest the returning morning might bring us 
sorrow. We almost feared our happiness, 
for we were but mortal, we knew that 
nothing mortal could last, and so each 


io8 A Study of Destiny. 

moment brought both fear and gladness 
in its train. 

. “ I have often wondered since, why God 

created love, when the price we pay for it 
is at times even greater than the salvation 
of the soul. It is a little thing to lose one’s 
rest hereafter, for the spirit can have no 
heartache. But to know what love is, and 
to lose what one has loved, to be compelled 
to live on and on through moments that 
are worse than eternities, to have a living 
body to care for, to clothe, to feed, while 
within there is a dead heart, is to my mind, 
a greater penalty by far, than the much 
paraded agony of the damned. 

“ But there are so few who have truly 
ever loved, so that words like these convey 
meaning to few, very few indeed. People 
as a rule but want, and desire, and lust to 
possess — they do not love ! They misuse 
the word, and in their shallowness go to 
their school books for a meaning of its 


A Study of Destiny. 109 

sacred sense. But to love truly, to love 
with heart and soul, with brain and body, 
is to be God-like, in the only human 
approach to Divinity — to the pure and 
faithful it is to create not one thing, but all 
things — a new Heaven, and a new earth. 
And in the fulfilment of dreams that be, to 
see the perfection of dreams to come. 

“ And it was thus with us. But we were 
children of earth, governed by the laws of 
cause and effect — doomed by the folly of 
others. 

“ One fatal morning the news came that 
my father had been killed, by accident. 
Such things custom calls accident or chance 
when they are evil, and puts down to the 
will of God when they are good. 

“When my father’s body had finally been 
laid to rest, in that peaceful churchyard in 
Devon, I found that the administration of 
his estate, and capital, lay solely in my 
mother’s hands, during her life-time, with 


no A study of Destiny. 

the exception of a tea-plantation in India, 
which he had lately purchased, and had 
bequeathed to me on my coming of age. 
My mother lost no time in exercising the 
legal powers, she was so unexpectly en- 
dowed with to prevent what she pleased to 
call a mesalliance. In vain I pleaded with 
her. In vain I protested. Come what 
would my mind was fully made up to 
marry Lucy, and I would go to the ends of 
the earth to accomplish my purpose In 
her attempts to frustrate me she would 
not heed my entreaties ; and I soon found 
I would have to resort to stronger means 
if I were to keep my resolution. 

“In a few months I would attain my 
majority, and convinced that my mother 
determined to have me in her power by 
selling the property in India before I con- 
trolled it, there was nothing left for me 
but to go to India and endeavour to pre- 
vent all action in the matter. 


A Study of Destiny. m 

“ Not until the morning fixed for my de- 
parture for the first time did I tell her of 
my resolution. Everything was in readiness, 
the dog-cart had driven round to the door, 
when I entered her room to say good-bye. 

“I had prepared myself for a scene, but 
certainly not for the tempestuous one that 
followed. When I told her, she at first 
simply attempted to dissuade me from 
going ; then in turn she tried entreaties, 
then threats, and finally as I tore myself 
from the room, I heard her throw herself 
on the sofa and sob, ‘Anywhere, anywhere, 
my boy, but to India ! ’ There was something 
in those words that made me hesitate. I 
stopped and turned back to her ; thinking to 
find her softened, I asked for the last time 
if she would consent to my marriage. But 
with the mere mention of the subject she 
lapsed again into the same hard woman of 
a moment before ; further argument was 
useless, so saying ‘ Good-bye/ I turned 


II2 


A Study of Destiny. 


from the room and without faltering was 
driven to the station. 

“ I had said farewell to Lucy the night 
before. She also had done all in her power 
to prevent me from going, and it was with 
a strange feeling of present ment, and 
gloom, that I looked from the train in the 
direction of the vicarage, and saw, or 
fancied I saw, a white face among the roses 
at her window, and a little white hand that 
waved me a last farewell. 

“ I tried to console myself for leaving her 
by saying over and over again, that it was 
for her sake I had to go. ‘ I shall want 
money and position for her,’ I thought; 

‘ she must have everything the world can 
give her’ — and yet my mother’s words, 
‘Anywhere, anywhere, my boy, but India!’ 
still echoed in my ears and filled me with 
gloomy presentiments and thoughts, that 
I tried in vain to banish. 

“ During the voyage I resolved that so 


A Study of Destiny. 113 

soon as my business matters were settled, 
I would pay a flying visit to the place of 
my birth. I vividly remembered all my 
father had told me, and I tried to picture 
in imagination the rugged mountains, and 
that strange, tragic scene, that occurred 
before my birth. The desire to go there 
became irresistible. 

“ Reaching India, I proceeded to adjust 
the affairs in connection with the plantation 
which would be lawfully mine so soon. It 
was fortunate that such was the case, as 
it would expedite matters, and enable me to 
sell the plantation and return to Lucy 
immediately. But, ah, how little do we 
know what slaves we are in the hands of 
that same Destiny, that sent a Napoleon 
to the throne, and a Judas to destruction ! 

“Week after week passed, delay after 
delay came. A drunken soldier struck a 
sepoy — a riot ensued, and all Government 
affairs were at a standstill. On another 


1 14 A study of Destiny. 

occasion, by the miswording of a tele- 
gram, all transactions were for the time 
being stopped. All little things — yes, 
little things ! — But alas, so potent ! So 
fatal ! 

“And so it happened I came of age in 
India — came of age, an heir to property 
certainly, but what if I tell you that there 
was another heritage as well — a heritage 
for which I had not counted. 

“On that morning, when my soul should 
have been jubilant, I woke as usual, woke 
to find the heat unbearable, even at that 
early hour, and as I threw aside the bed 
covering to relieve my oppression, I 
noticed a curious throbbing pain, in my left 
side, which I could not account for. 

“Fatigued through pain, I fell asleep 
again, and dreamt, it seemed to me, the 
same dream over and over again. I thought 
my father came into the room ; and stoop- 
ing down, had whispered into my ear: 


”5 


A St tidy of Destiny. 

* The, seed that is sowed must be reaped — 
it matters little by whom. Be patient, 
there is no law but that of God. Nature 
and destiny are servants thereto.' 

“I woke with the words ringing in my 
ears, woke, with that horrible gnawing 
pain, worse than before, and with a terrible 
fear and dread, of something, that I could 
not explain, and still less understand. 
Although my brain was much distraught 
during the day, I wrote a long letter to 
Lucy with the semblance of cheerfulness. 
She had astonished me in her last letter, 
by informing me, as a piece of news she 
thought would please me, that my mother 
had completely changed her attitude to- 
wards her, for which she expressed great 
joy; and that she had been at my 
mother’s house several times, and was 
going again during the very evening on 
which she wrote, to talk about the future 
and me. 


ti6 A study of Destiny. 

“My first thoughts were to prevent such 
visits. Her simple words filled me with 
misgivings. But the next moment I could 
not but feel ashamed of my filial disloyalty, 
so, I merely answered, that I was indeed 
surprised, at such a change on the part of 
my mother, and hoped that nothing would 
arise to cause her any regret. More I 
could not lend myself to write on that 
score, for my whole nature was in rebellion. 

“Again and again I read my darling’s 
letter, and as I paused and pondered over 
her sweet words, and sweeter thoughts, 
I was so happy that I forgot my dream, my 
forebodings of evil, and even the terrible 
gnawing pain in my side, which during 
some hours of the day caused me the 
greatest agony. I consoled myself with 
the thought that being now of age, I could 
dispose of the plantation in a short space 
of time, and return and hear those words 
of loving tenderness from Lucy’s lips. 


A Shcdy of Destiny. 117 

Yes, I dreamed to claim her very soon as 
my wife. 

“ However, certain legal technicalities 
had to be gone through, and nearly six 
months expired before I could finally dis- 
pose of the property, and prepare to 
return. 

“ During all this time I suffered consider- 
able pain, yet I sought no medical advice. 
I persuaded myself that it was probably 
the result of some strain, and that it would 
be better to wait, and get proper attention, 
when I returned to London. There was, 
however, something else that caused me 
greater anxiety. For a few months back, 
I had noticed a considerable change in the 
tone of Lucy’s letters. They became 
more and more unlike the spontaneous 
expressions of love, and devotion, that 
I had at first received. Occasionally there 
would be one more in the former key, yet 
I could not but see that some change had 


ii8 A study of Best my. 

taken place, and my heart grew sick with 
anxiety as to the cause. Presently word 
came from the rector that Lucy had been 
very ill, but, he thought, was getting better, 
and that there was no need for anxiety, or 
for my returning before my business was 
fully settled. 

“I longed to take the next steamer, but, 
as everything was on the eve of conclusion, 
I was forced to wait, and tried to console 
myself by counting the hours and days, 
when I should be able to return to comfort 
Lucy. 

“As a certain transaction, in concluding 
my business, had called me to within a 
short distance of the place of my birth ; 
and finding myself after it was attended to 
free, and compelled to wait a week, before 
the steamer sailed, I determined to make 
the trip, as it would probably be the 
only opportunity \ should ever have to do 


so. 


A Study of Destiny. 119 

“Alas ! how little do "we know what a 
single step in this or that direction, may 
bring forth. And yet it is useless to 
repine. What is to be, will be. I had 
to go. 

“ I reached the place, made myself 
known, and was received with the greatest 
hospitality by the colonel and the officers 
at the barracks. As I intended to remain 
there but a day, on the following morning, 
accompanied by some of my new friends, 
I set out to see the various points of 
interest, such as forts, etc., constructed 
by my father during his command of the 
garrison. 

“Again I heard the extraordinary story of 
the old Yogi, who was executed on the 
morning after the attack on the barracks. 
For, although years had passed, yet the 
story went the round of every regiment 
that was stationed there. Many and 
strange were the theories advanced as we 


120 A Shidy of Destiny. 

rode along, as to what had so frightened 
my mother, or what my father and she had 
seen, as the old Yogi fell lifeless to the 
ground. 

“ Pulling up his horse as we passed under 
the I'agged edges of a mountain, the 
colonel pointed upwards to a large cave 
just above an extraordinary plateau of 
solid rock, which, he said, had been the 
habitation of the old Yogi during my 
father’s command. Jestingly I proposed 
that we should go there ; the colonel took 
my proposal seriously, but personally 
declined to make the ascent with the 
excuse that his ‘ bones were too old for 
the climb.’ The other two officers, how- 
ever, jumped at the idea, so leaving our 
horses in the care of the colonel, we 
began to climb the steep escarpment. 

“ It was still early morning, and the dew 
of the night made the rocks and mosses 
so slippery and dangerous, we were forced 


12t 


A Study of Destiny. 

to proceed with the utmost caution. At last 
we reached the wide rocky plateau facing 
the mouth of the cave, and for a moment 
stood enraptured with the magnificence of 
the view. All nature seemed to have 
combined to produce a wealth of scenery 
that could not be surpassed. 

“ Forest, and plain and mountain de- 
ployed around us, and like some grand 
panorama appeared to change, and grow, 
and then dissolve with every movement of 
the eyes. Above our heads, the rugged 
mountain peak rose into the very heart of 
heaven, while on every side Time had carved 
the rocks in strange, fantastic shapes, that 
would baffle the wildest imagination to 
describe. 

“ Stretched out below us we could see the 
barracks, and the soldiers moving about 
like busy little ants in the morning sun- 
shine, while on our right lay a white- 
washed fort flying the English flag, and 


122 


A Study of Destiny. 

with the black nozzles of its cannon like 
jealous eyes looking across the frontier. 

“ ‘ It would make a mystic of any man to 
live here,’ said one of the officers, as he 
turned towards the cave. ‘ And see here, 
here is food to eat and water to drink.’ 
And he pointed to where a spring burst 
forth through the very face of a large 
rock, surrounded by a perfect garden of 
edible herbs. 

“Inside the cave we found everything as 
if its inhabitant had left it but an hour 
before. There was a rude couch in its 
furthermost corner, on which the skin of 
a large tiger was spread, and by its side 
was a rough set of shelves which contained 
a variety of books on profound subjects, 
that completely amazed us. At the 
extremity, far within, was a large cavity 
which apparently had been used for a 
temple. In the centre stood an altar and 
a stone figure of Siva — the Destroyer— 


A Shtdy of Destiny. 123 

which from its appearance must have been 
carved centuries agone. Before the god 
there still remained the withered stalks of 
herbs and flowers — probably the old Yogi’s 
last propitiatory offering before that fatal 
night. 

“ On a table, rude as the other furniture, 
placed at the head of the couch, was a 
copy of the Vedas, an English Bible, and a 
slab, on which it was evidently the custom 
of the aged recluse to write down his 
thoughts. Tremblingly I took up the slab. 
I seemed to feel that my soul would read 
its death warrant, yet, I could not help 
but look. 

“The first line was in Hindustani, which 
I could not decipher. Then came the 
words in English : ‘No man shall escape 
his fate — did not even a God die that 
the scriptures might be fulfilled ? ’ 

“ ‘ No man shall escape his fate ! ’ 
Strange, I thought, that everywhere I 


124 


A study of Destiny. 

turn is some warning of this kind accost- 
ing me. ‘ What can it mean ? ’ I cried 
aloud, forgetful of my companions. In 
answer came a sigh, so weird, so strange, 
so audible, that even the soldiers stepped 
backwards in their fear. 

“ ‘ Come away! ’ exclaimed one. ‘This 
place gives me the shivers, and besides, 
we can’t keep the colonel waiting any 
longer.’ And drawing me along by the 
arm, they prepared to leave. We had 
descended but a few steps when I recol- 
lected that I had forgotten my whip by 
the side of the couch, and returned for it, 
calling to the others not to wait, I would 
follow. 

“ Returning from the strong glare of 
sunshine into the gloom of the cave, for a 
moment I could not see. When I did, my 
heart nearly failed me. I became con- 
scious of the apparition of an old man 
looking at me from the couch, and as my 


A Study of Destiny. 


125 


eyes met his, he pointed with a long, lean 
finger to those words on the slab, which 
were still running like quicksilver through 
my brain. 

“A sensation of fear possessed me. I 
blindly bolted out of the cave, my feet 
slipped on the rocks and mosses ; in vain 
I clutched at the shrubs, and brambles, in 
my path. I tried to stop, but something 
seemed to pursue me. I could see the 
colonel far away in the path below. I 
could hear the voices of my companions 
shouting to me to take care. But my feet 
were slipping, the stones, mosses, and 
rocks were sliding from under me. I 
caught at branches, but they broke; my 
head was giddy, my senses sick with fear. 
I heard a huge rock I had dislodged, go 
crashing downwards into the abyss below, 
and with a wild scream for help, my body 
reeled over, and I remember no more. 

“When consciousness returned, I found 


126 


A study of Destiny, 


myself lying in the colonel’s rooms in the 
barracks. They told me I had been there 
for three days. At first it was feared 
that the skull had been fractured, but 
when a thorough examination had been 
made by the surgeons, they found that 
together with a deep cut across the skull, 
the severest injury I had received was 
a complicated break of the right leg, suffi- 
cient to keep me on my back for eight 
weeks at least. ‘ But Lucy,’ I thought, 
what of her ? What will she think of this 
delay after all my promises to return ? ’ and 
as I lay there day after day in agony, my 
thoughts were always of her, and of how 
she would bear the disappointment. 

“After a long time, I was able to get my 
letters reforwarded to the garrison. The 
first one I opened was from the old rector, 
telling me the cruel news, that again, my 
darling was ill — so ill that she was unable to 
write. 


A Study of Destiny. 


127 


“With a great effort, ill as I was, I rose 
and determined that I would start for 
England-even if it killed me, I remember 
that morning well. I had half dressed, when 
the pain in my side, which I had not felt 
for some days, returned with double fury. 
The surgeon came in at this moment, and 
when I was again placed in bed, he com- 
menced an examination, and, I could see 
by the puzzled look on his face, that the 
agony I suffered, was beyond his compre- 
hension. So things went on until the day 
came when the pain was beyond all 
endurance, and finally in the evening the 
flesh opened, and a peculiar growth began 
to make its appearance. The Army 
Surgeon from that moment refused to 
take charge of the case, so my good friend 
the colonel decided that there was nothing 
to be done, but to have me immediately 
removed to the nearest Military Hospital. 
An ambulance was finally constructed, and 


128 A study of Destiny. 

a band of natives engaged to transport me 
over the rough country to the nearest 
town. After a painful experience, I 
reached the hospital. 

“The surgeons then held consultation 
after consultation. They admitted they 
had never seen anything like it before, but 
they persisted in calling it a tumour, so as 
a tumourous growth, with a Latin name, 
it was finally diagnosed. In spite of all 
their medical skill, the thing grew — I 
had never called it a tumour ; to me it was 
a things undefined, horrible, and name- 
less. By the time the bones of my broken 
leg were sufficiently knit to travel, it 
had grown out of my side to the length of 
several inches. To complicate matters, it 
had grown from the inside, as it were, and 
had forced back the flesh, like the lips of a 
wound that it separated and kept apart. 
From its position between the ribs and 
the pelvis, the doctors argued that its 


A Study of Destiny. 129 

proximity to the heart and other vital organs 
placed all chance of an operation out of 
the question. Yet hope kept alive within 
my heart, and looking forward to the 
superior skill of medical specialists in 
London, at last with a sigh of relief, 
I sailed for home. 

“But I had not realized the full extent of 
the calamity that had overtaken me. I 
had but thought that it was some sort 
of growth of an unusual kind, and I felt 
certain, in spite of the decision of the 
hospital surgeons, that I would find some 
means in London or Paris, of having it 
removed. But the bliss of ignorance did 
not last long. 

“ One evening in the middle of the ocean, 
I was turning over some of my father’s 
papers, and finding an old diary of his, 
written during his command on the 
Afghan frontier; I took it up on deck and 
commenced to read. Hour after hour 


130 A Study of Destiny. 

passed as I perused the hopes, deeds, and 
dreams of the man who was responsible 
for my being. It was almost dark when I 
came to the passage, ‘ Oh how I should 
like to have a child — a son who would 
perpetuate my name.’ 

“A little later I read, ‘I have married — 
more in order to have a child than to have 
a wife.’ 

“And so I read on and on, till I came to 
the terrible night of the ball, and the exe- 
cution of the Yogi. ‘At last,’ I thought, 
* I will know what caused my mother the 
terrible fright that resulted in my pre- 
mature birth.’ And bending over the 
faded leaves before me, I came to this 
passage : 

“ ‘ Oh, my God ! What have I done ? As 
the muskets rang out and the Yogi’s body 
sank to the ground, there leaped from the 
grass at my wife’s feet, a hideous black 
snake, that springing upward with an angry 


A St tidy of Destiny. 131 

hiss, struck her on the side, and falling 
back into the grass, disappeared. In- 
stantly I thought of the last words of the 
old Yogi. What if they had already come 
true, before the very breath had left his 
body ! Again I thought of the child — the 
child I had wished for, had prayed for — the 
child that was living within her. Oh, my 
God ! what have I done ! what have I 
done ! If a crime has been committed — if' 
nature must be avenged, let the punish- 
ment, I pray Thee, fall upon me and not 
upon the child that is unconscious of the 
sin of the father.’ 

“I could read no more. The diary slip- 
ped from my hands and fell at my feet, but 
I did not move. My eyes instinctively, as 
in trouble, looked upward to the sky — but 
there was no God there for me. The 
night fell and the stars came out, but no 
God, no hope for me. The stars wan- 
dered on in their appointed courses — they 


132 A study of Destiny. 

could not change in their unwritten path- 
way through the sky — and as I watched 
them in my despair, again the words of 
the old Yogi passed before my eyes: ‘ No 
man shall escape his fate — did not a God 
die, that the scriptures might be fulfilled ? ’ 

“ How long I sat there I do not know. 
The seed that had been sown would have 
to be gathered. There could be no doubt 
now as to what was my fate, and the dis- 
covery for the time being utterly un- 
manned me. A sharp pain in my side re- 
called me to myself. That pain had a new 
meaning to it now, which it would require 
all my fortitude to face. I pressed my 
teeth into my lips to keep back the cry of 
agony that rose from my very soul. And so 
I sat there waiting and fearing, as one 
would fear the stealthy approach of an in- 
vincible enemy. 

“ Suddenly my whole body grew cold and 
rigid with terror. There had been a 


A Study of Destiny. 


133 


slight movement in the thing — a little 
tremble — a quiver, but of life. The cold 
perspiration stood in great beads on my 
forehead. I could feel my heart cease 
beating, the blood chilled in my veins, and 
as I pi’essed my hands to my face, I shrank 
from their ice-cold touch. 

“ But there was a resolution forming in 
my mind — a thought, that a moment before 
I should have rejected with disgust. I 
had never seen the thing. I had never 
dared to look at it. Now, I would go 
to my cabin, and see my enemy, face to 
face. I reached for my crutches — softly I 
limped across the deck. It was midnight. 
Not a sound to disturb the silence of the 
ocean but the panting of the engines, as 
they forged their way across the deep. 

“The lamp was burning in my stateroom 
— a little oil lamp, that gave a sickly 
yellow light. I took it down, and placing 
it where I could see well, I opened the 


134 Study of Destiny. 

loose silk shirt I wore, and looking into 
the mirror, one glance was sufficient to 
show me that my most dreaded fears had 
been realized. 

“Yes, it had begun to have life, indepen- 
dent of my life. Oh God ! how my senses 
reeled when I saw the shape it had taken, 
the colour it had assumed. I staggered 
out of my cabin. I reached the deck, 
delirious with frenzy, sick with horror. Can 
you wonder at me, when those who have 
had some petty grief have put an end to 
their misery, that I should also at such a 
moment determine to end my accursed 
existences. It would be so easy, I thought 
— and accounted an ‘ accident of course.’ 
Strange even at a moment like that, that 
one should consider the opinion of the 
world. And yet I did not think so much 
of ending my own life. My sole thought ' 
was to kill that thing and I looked 
upon my body more as one would look 


A Study of Destiny. 135 

upon a stone — a. stone to weight it 
down and drown it, and hold it to 
the depths of the ocean for ever and ever. 

“I could so easily slip unnoticed over 
the side of the vessel, and be swallowed up 
for ever with my secret stigma. Yet, I 
dreaded people finding my body, and 
curious eyes wondering and speculating as 
to the growth and cause of the thing, 
and I feared too, ay, even more than all 
— that if I shot or destroyed myself with 
poison, that it might still live — and 
crawl about like a vampire on the dead 
body that had generated it — but, what 
matter, what matter, I should be insen- 
sible. 

“ I reached the stern of the boat. 
Everything was quiet. Learning over I 
looked down into the fathomless black 
water, but Lucy’s face reproachfully rose 
before me, and stopped me — her eyes 
gazed into mine — her arms held me back— 


136 A Study of Destiny. 

and frightened at my cowardly intent, I 
crouched down on deck under the shadow 
of a life-boat, and lay there till dawn, 

“As I had sent no word of my departure 
from India, when I reached England, 
instead of going directly home, I went on 
to London and consulted several medical 
experts, before venturing to go down to 
Devon. But there was no hope : surgeon 
after surgeon examined and failed to 
diagnose. To kill the thing would be to 
kill me — to let it live, would be the 
same thing in the end. They listened to 
my story, but the wise men of science 
would not have believed it if they had not 
seen and examined the thing with their 
own eyes. Why it had not made itself 
manifest until I was of age, they could not 
understand, because legal and natural 
maturity are at variance. They agreed by 
common consent, in lieu of something 
better, it was attributable to the intense 


A Study of Destiny. 

heat of India. But the chain of coincidence 
had been so strong, I knew instinctively 
that Fate ordained I should go to India. 
The doctors thought it would be some 
time before the thing would be fully 
developed, and its fangs might then be 
extracted, and I would live — but live with 
the thing for ever a companion. 

“ It was thus with hope completely dead 
that I returned home. I determined to 
see Lucy, to bid her good-bye for ever. 
Renounce my happiness, then go away to 
some quiet place, and strive to get the 
courage to end my life, or wait till it was 
ended for me, but never, never sow the 
damnable seed for some child to reap the 
infamy thereof. I racked my brains as to 
what plausible story I could tell her, as an 
excuse for leaving her again. I dared not 
tell her the abhorrent truth — I could not 
bring myself to do it. I could not seem to 
invent any subterfuge, so I counted each 


138 A Study of Destiny. 

moment that brought me nearer to her; 
most harrassed and uncertain as to the 
course I should pursue. The train entered 
the station, and with a heavy heart, I 
started out upon my mission — a victim 
branded by an obdurate heredity — a child 
of cruel Destiny. 

“ It was summer again. The hedges of the 
quaint old Devonshire road were full of 
blossom, and before I reached the vicarage, 
the perfume of the roses swept past and 
greeted me, charged with old memories. 
It was evening as I entered the garden — 
almost dusk. There was no face peering 
between the roses now, and so uncared 
for, and neglected they looked, that my 
heart almost failed me, for I wondered 
how long her hands had ceased to tend 
them. 

“The porch was silent and deserted, the 
door was open, and as no one answered 
my ring, I entered the hall and stood for a 


A Study of Destiny. 139 

moment irresolute as to what I should do. 

“The drawing room was empty, so was 
the study. On the desk, under an old- 
fashioned reading lamp lay the rector’s 
notes for the following Sunday’s sermon. 
In a nook of the desk, where the fond 
father’s eyes could always see it, stood a 
little portrait of Lucy in the very dress 
in which 1 had seen her on that first 
morning in the garden. I snatched it up 
and kissed it, kissed it, till the tears rained 
down my cheeks, and I could scarcely see 
the picture. And yet, in a few moments I 
would have to part from her for ever — 
perhaps break her heart by what I had to 
tell her ! 

“At last I heard voices, hushed, subdued 
voices, upstairs. I hardly know why I 
ascended. I went up the softly carpeted 
stairs, and stood for a moment on the 
landing outside a little room, within which 
stood a jar full of roses — the roses that 1 


140 A Study of Destiny. 

loved the most. I heard the old rector’s 
voice in prayer, subdued words that I 
could scarcely catch, and which were 
every now and then, broken by a sob. I 
could now and again hear one word — yes, 
I could hear my name mentioned. 
Between deep, broken sobs, I heard the 
old man ask God to forgive me for the 
cruel deception I had practised. 1 could 
hear no more. Softly I entered. Lucy 
only saw me. In another second she was 
clasped in my arms, and in a strange faint 
voice I heard her say, ‘ Oh, I knew you 
would come. I did not believe them. 
They told me you would never return — 
that you had deserted me. But I knew 
that you would come back. Thank God 1 
thank God ! ’ 

“She sank back, exhausted. The effort 
of speech had been too much. One look 
into her eyes told me that I had come too 
alte. The long, lean arms of death had 


A Study of Destiny. 141 

claimed her — she was his, not mine. 
Bending close to her I whispered, ‘My 
darling, I never deserted you. What they 
told you was false, absolutely false. I love 
you now, as I have loved you always. 
You are mine in spite of Fate — in spite of 
death, Lucy, mine till the end of life, and 
time, and eternity.’ 

“A sigh of infinite love, of happiness, and 
a murmured ‘Thank God,’ and as the 
shadows of the evening closed in, the end 
came. And it was well. 

“ The old rector and I were left alone. 
From him in a few heart-broken words, 
I learned the cause of Lucy’s anguish, 
and all she had suffered during my ab- 
sence. 

“ My misguided mother had won her con- 
fidence — her love even, and after winning 
both, prompted by her pride, had crushed 
Lucy’s heart, by her stories of my unfaith- 
fulness, that rankled in the girl’s devoted 


142 A study of Destiny. 

heart to finally kill her. Such was the 
end. 

“And yet, my mother had committed this 
great sin, she contritely avowed to me that 
night of mourning, out of the great love 
she bore me — out of her accursed pride — 
her love of place and power — out of her 
jealous, selfish love for me ! As she knelt 
before me sueing for my forgiveness, 
I scarcely knew what I did, or what I said. 
I only remember in my frantic revolt, as 
I tore open my clothing and exposed the 
writhing creature, stirred by my mad 
passion, she shrank away with fear and 
loathing from the son of her pride, and 
without pity, I left her lying there the 
victim of her own iniquity, and went out 
into the night alone. 

“ O God ! how I suffered for the days and 
months that followed. The coldness of 
the climate caused the thing to torture 
me with agony. I tried to die, aye, many 


A Study of Destiny. 


143 


times, but could not — dared not. Lucy’s 
face would always come before me, her 
lips between mine and the death that I fain 
would drink. So, I have lived on, praying 
for the end ; at last, I have not long to 
wait — it is close at hand. The physicians 
in London told me that they surmised that, 
in due course of development, the fangs or 
poison glands of the thing would grow, 
and all that could be done was to wait 
until that time, and have them then 
- extracted. In the event of that being 
done, I might live, they thought, even to 
the term of mature manhood, of middle 
age. But such is not to be. A few days 
ago I noticed that the fangs were nearly 
ready to do their work — the coldness of 
this place will hasten matters, that is all. 
The seed that was sown is nearly gathered. 
I am not worse than others, for all inherit 
— some evil desires, some passions, some 
diseases, that are worse than death. One 


144 Study of Destiny. 

thing — I have had the moral courage to 
resist sowing blighted seeds of heredity. 
My strength was love for Lucy. 

“ I came here to live amongst these tombs 
that I might find the courage to face death. 
I have gained more, for I have learned a 
philosophy from my suffering, and from 
these dead Egyptians that is beyond death, 
and knows redemption, and promises re- 
incarnation for the soul that has been 
purified of all that is carnal. 

“As for my knowledge of this place, 
during my rambles among these tombs, 
I too discovered those strange characters, 
and one day I was fortunate enough to find 
the secret of the entrance through which 
we passed. 

“I kept the knowledge to myself, hoping 
that when death came, he would find me 
n this place where my body might turn to 
dust undisturbed, without prying eyes to 
question with their pitiless curiosity. 


145 


A Study of Destiny. 

“ enstiC Moryides d. My life soon will be. 
I do not rebel now. A natural law governs 
that which seems too often most unnatural. 
If evil is done, it must be atoned for, let the 
thoughtless ones of the world remember. 
If we could know, then we could change, 
for as the present is the effect of a hereto- 
fore cause, so are our present actions the 
cause of a hereafter effect. But we fain 
would torture and punish those who would 
try to lift the veil, forgetting that if we 
mortals are led ever so dimly, that the 
smallest light might warn us in advance of 
dangers that there is no escape from when 
we are once overwhelmed in their midst.” 


CHAPTER VII 

HE effect of this terrible story, told 



1 in the gruesome surroundings and 
blackness of the tomb, had, as might be 
imagined, the most powerful influence on 
our minds. 

As we lay there, we seemed to see that 
hideous thing growing more and more 
angry every moment, until at last it would 
bury its deadly fangs in the body on which 
it had lived. And yet, strange as it may 
seem, the tale we had listened to of sorrow 
and of suffering, and of rebellion, and of 
noble resistance, had the effect of nullifying 
our own agony of mind, and our dread for 
ourselves. Tender sympathy possessed 


A Study of Destiny. 147 

us. It is ever so in life — there is often an 
anti-death to real death ; the story of 
another’s loss or suffering has sometimes 
the effect of making us forget our own. 
The influence of some strong soul going 
bravely through personal suffering without 
complaint, enables others more weak 
ofttimes, to gather the fortitude to endure 
even greater trials. 

In silence we lay there after he had 
finished. In such a moment, a clasp of the 
hand expresses more than all the language 
of the lips ... I question if either the 
professor or myself had ever considered 
this problem of Destiny in such a forcible 
way. Lamentable as it is, the education 
of this practical age we live in does not 
encourage such a vein of thought. We 
forge ahead in what we call progress, 
enlightenment, and elevation — why, then 
should we be occupied with Destiny ? 

The laws of herdity are studied and 


148 A Study of Destiny. 

practised in breeding cattle — yet spurned 
and neglected in human creatures. We 
mock at them, and cant about the inscru- 
table laws of God — mark you, not because 
we are a religious race, but that we may 
shirk our responsibilities and still be 
thought to be respectable. And so we 
live — or rather die — and it is only at our 
death that we deign to know ; therefore, 
it is only at our death that we are truly 
alive. 

Yet, we boast of our free will, and in 
our shameless ignorance we reproduce our 
species, we, who in our full knowledge, 
through carnal instinct damn, and worse 
than kill, our degenerate, afflicted progeny. 

True, a man can say he is free to turn 
to the left or right by the action of his 
will, but in doing so he must not forget 
that his action is due to the conscious 
effort, whereas the unconscious is for ever 
at the wheel of Destiny. 


A Study of Destiny. 


149 


Thoughts such as these trooped in 
myriads through my mind, in the awful 
silence that followed the story, as we 
speechlessly prepared for our own death, 
from which there seemed no possible 
escape. 

With our last match we lit a pile of linen 
strips endued with bitumen, and strong 
smelling unguents, that had once swathed 
the head of a king’s mummy. As the 
blaze weirdly leaped upwards, we per- 
ceived that we had for some unaccountable 
reason changed our positions, and were 
facing the entrance of the tomb, and 
looking towards the desecrated body of the 
seventh mummy, which had been so placed 
as if to guard all ingress and exit. We 
casually noticed that the wrappings had 
been entirely torn off the mummy’s left 
hand, as it lay outside the broken sar- 
cophagus, almost touching the floor. It 
was a trifle that distracted our attention 


150 A Study of Destiny. 

for a moment and nothing more. The 
blaze would soon be gone. Jealously we 
turned towards it, believing it was the last 
gleam of light we would ever see ; and, so 
we lay there regretfully watching it grow 
smaller and smaller, until it was finally 
spent, and there was nothing left, but a 
ball of fiei’y embers that glowed amidst the 
universal darkness. We drew a little 
apart from one another. There was no 
farewell spoken. A clasp of the hand was 
sufficient. The supreme moment was upon 
us. We waited for death, each man by 
himself. 

It is more than probable that the pro- 
fessor instinctively following his research 
to the last, had prepared to meet his doom 
with his eyes looking towards that seventh 
mummy, that occupied such a commanding 
position, but whether that was so or not, 
when the light died out, the old man 
suddenly startled us with an exclamation of 


A Study of Destiny. 151 

surprise. In a husky voice he whispered, 
“ See there ! See there ! ” 

Straining our eyes in the apparent 
direction his voice indicated, we descried a 
tiny spot of phosphoi’escent light, about 
the size of a thumb nail. Before I could 
move, Chanley had by a superhuman 
effort dragged himself across the stones 
and clutched it. In a voice trembling 
with emotion, he called out to us to fan 
into a blaze the embers of our exhausted 
fire. Our matches were all gone — if that 
little red spark could not be coaxed back 
to life, it would be impossible to obtain a 
light. Tearing up the wick of the lantern 
and fanning, whilst carefully feeding, the 
shreds to the embers, presently I succeeded 
in reviving a little glow, then a flickering 
flame, and with the additional help of some 
wrappings torn from the nearest mummy, 
once more a strong blaze shot up and 
illuminated the place. 


152 


A Study of Destiny. 


In Chanley’s hand was a large ring, a 
band of gold covered with inscriptions 
that encircled a curious flat stone of a 
greenish colour. His hands were trem- 
bling with nervous excitement, as he tried 
to examine and decipher the hieroglyphics. 
In the darkness, the stone was phospho- 
rescent, emitting a pale uncertain shim- 
mer. Placed near the light, it became 
almost black, and showed white lines that 
formed a strange-looking hierarchic design 
upon its surface. 

With nervous voice Chanley turned and 
said, “There may be one chance left. The 
lines on this extraordinary ring contain a 
well-drawn plan of the passages radiating 
to and from this secret tomb, and from it 
I gather that thei’e may yet be one way of 
escape open. What I am about to 
try is merely a venture. This ring tells 
of notches cut in the left side wall of the 
well. I will descend and try to find a 


153 


A Study of Destiny. 

passage which, according to this ring, 
should lead from this tomb to the outer 
world. Good-bye, comrades, in event some 
fatality claims me.” 

Chanley found the notches indicated 
without much difficulty, but it was with 
heavy hearts that we watched him dis- 
appear into that deep hole that seemed to 
have no bottom. As the professor had 
visited the well in the Pyramid of Cheops, 
and as this one seemed exactly similar, 
it was with little hope that we could 
anticipate good results. The well in the 
Pyramid of Cheops, the professor had often 
told me, led nowhere, and was simply a 
source of marvel as to why it had ever 
been constructed. According to the testi- 
mony of the few who had ever attempted 
to descend, it was of an extraordinary 
depth, and the bottom was covered by a 
species of lizard not found elsewhere. 

With hearts alternating between hope 


154 ^ Siudy of Desilny. 

and despair, we fanned the blaze and tried 
to keep it alive, for the gloom of the place 
was now more terrible than ever. We 
would occasionally creep on hands and 
knees to the edge of the well to listen, but 
always to withdraw disappointed. 

Minute followed minute, and still we 
waited. 

We had fed the little beacon fire for the 
last time, for we were both weak and could 
do no more. When suddenly a slight sound 
like a gasp broke upon our ears, and before 
we had time to question whether it was 
a trick of our overwrought imagination or 
reality, Chanley climbed over the edge of 
the well and dropped exhausted at our feet. 

His clothing was torn to tatters, and as 
he shook the water from his hair in the 
flickering fire-light I marked the haggard 
look of his face, and an expression in his 
eyes that could only have but one meaning. 
The supreme moment was upon him. His 


A Study of Destiny. 155 

hour had come. He could scarcely speak. 
It seemed as if the muscles of his throat 
were becoming set and hard. “ Quick, 
quick ! ” he said. “ Listen ! There are 
notches down the side of the well — climb 
down to a ledge of stone that has three 
passages. Take the left one. Creep on 
hands and knees till you reach a deep 
cavern filled with water. Have no fear, 
dive straight through — it leads to the Nile 
— it will bring you to safety. Leave me — • 
leave me here.” 

His head fell back — he tried to smile, 
but his lips refused to move. The old 
professor, with tears streaming down his 
face, tried to raise him, saying as he did 
so, “You must come, my boy, you must 
come with us.” 

His hands meanwhile frantically tore his 
shirt open. Destiny had indeed been cruel 
and inexorable to the end. The thing 
was lying there, motionless — it had done 


156 A Study of Destiny. 

its work — its fangs were buried in his flesh. 
With a last effort he raised himself ; and 
taking our hands, said softly, “ Remember 
— the seed that was sown is gathered— 
farewell I ” 



Qrapho FresSf London and Wealdstonc* 


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SnOKINQ FLAX. 

A Story of Dixie’s Latest Problem. 

By HaLLIE ERMINIE RIVES. 

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no court, and the briefs are all drawn up by the reader. 

Upon the stern and rigid warp of brutal and bloody 
fact. Miss Rives, with the hand of a practised workman, 
and with a shuttle wound with the bright hues and 
odorous warm-ths of the south-land has woven a woof of 
romance, of woman’s tenderest love and man’s manliest 
devotion. The lights and shades are closely mingled, 
and through all the story, from its opening in the calm 
of peace and content, to its tragic close in the storm of 
death and bitterness and despair, the reader is held in an 
interest which grc^ws steadily more real and more en» 
thralling. 

For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. 

. F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 

96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, 


NEELY’S HISTORY 

OF THE 

Parliament of Religions and Religions Congresses 

AT THE 

COLUriBIAN EXPOSITION. 


Autheritic, 

Reliable, Complete, 
Impartial, Non-Sectarian. 


9 A Pascinatins: Story. 

@ A Book of Universal Interest. 

® A Companion of the Scholar. 

® Of the Greatest value for reference. 


Illustrated with full-page half-tone engravings. 

Complete ia one volume of over looo pages. 

Compiled from original manuscripts and stenographic reports. A thorough 
history of the grandest achievement and the most important event in modern 
religious history. 

THE WORK EAIBODIES 

Origin of the Parliament of Religion. 

Biographical sketches of Dr. John Henry Barrows and President C. C. Bonney. 
Proceedings of the meetings of the Parliament. 

Speeches and addresses ddivered and essays and papers read at the sessions of 
the noted gathering 

A lucid explanation or the Great Religions of the earth. 

The beliefs of the various Religious Denominations. 

Narrative as to many gatherings held in connection with the Parliament. 

A general review of the Religious Congresses, with a condensed report of the 
various daily proceedings, addresses, papers and speeches during the entire 
denominational sessions, both day and evening. 

Opinions of eminent Divines in regard to the Parliament. 

Influence of the Parliament upon the Religious Thought of the world. 

A complete index, rendering all subjects at once available. 

JOHN P. ALTQELD, Governor of Illinois.— This is one of the highest 
achievements of human civilization. 

FREDERICK G. BRO/IBERQ. Commissioner from Alabama to the World’s 
Columbian Exposition. It is invaluable as presenting a body of statements of 
religious beliefs and creeds. 

A1 ADELINE VINTON DAHLGREN. Washington, D. C.-The Parliament of 
Religions, whose spirit and purpose was the study of all beliefs, presented a spec- 
tacle of unequalled moral grandeur. Your work is of superior interest. 

WILLIAfl DRYSDALE. Cranford, N. I.— The Parliament of Religions 
strengthens one’s faith in the real brotherhood of man. But v/ithout your report 
of the proceedings its influence may have been woefully limited. No thinldng 
man should be uninformed of the opinion of so important a representative body— 
and on this great subject the man who does not think must be incapable of 
thought. 

Complete In one large volume of over 1009 pages. Fully Illustrated. Two volumes Inono. 
Octavo Cloth) Gold Side and Back, $ 2 . 50 . Full Sheepi Library Style $ 4 . 50 . 


For sale everywhere, or sent post-paid on receipt of price. 

F. TENNYSON NEELY, Publisher, 

96 Queen Street, London. 114 Fifth Avenue, New York. 





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